The Lot 15 parking lots are considered full after 30 or less spaces remain, according to André Davis. Photo by Ian KeelSarah Faulkner- Editor-in-Chiefeditor@insideuab.com
As the debut of the school year comes to a close, many students, faculty and staff are speaking out about our campus’s overcrowded parking lots.
With 79.5 percent of all undergraduate students commuting to campus, according to a data set compiled by the Office of Institutional Effectiveness for the 2014-2015 school year, many have difficulty finding parking spots. Long walks to class from remote parking lots coupled with Alabama’s customary 90+ degree temperatures has drawn criticism to UAB Parking and Transportation.
André Davis, the director of Parking and Transportation Services, was a guest speaker at the most recent Undergraduate Student Government Association senate meeting on Sept. 6. Davis began with a brief update on the current state of parking at UAB, adding that the first few weeks of classes are always hectic.
“We are working on our first in-depth study to look at our campus and to figure out things we can do better and what we are doing well,” Davis said. “Recommendations will be published sometime in early January.”
Fernando Colunga, the president of USGA, will serve on the committee that will be work with the national consulting firm alongside Haley Kendrick, the president of the graduate student government.
“[The problems with parking on campus are] lack of parking spots for all of our students with parking permits, lack of reliable transportation via the Blazer Express from remote parking lots to the center of campus, lack of accurate way of informing students know how many spots are available in decks and lots,” Colunga said. “In my opinion, the most important problem is the lack in funds for the Parking and Transportation Department, because they are an auxiliary department. All the money they get to work with is from the sale of parking permits and parking tickets.”
USGA Executive Vice President Kevin Lee presided over the forum. When he spoke with the Kaleidoscope, he also mentioned the problems related to overcrowding on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“One problem that not a lot of people look at is how classes have been scheduled heavily on Tuesday and Thursday the past two years,” Lee said. “During peak hours near noon, you’ll be lucky to find a spot after half an hour of driving around.”
Currently, the Department of Parking and Transportation Services manages more than 80 off-street parking facilities with approximately 17,000 individual spaces, according to Davis. As of Fall 2015, since the official numbers for the 2016 enrollment have yet to be calculated, there are 18,333 total individuals enrolled at UAB as students between both the undergraduate and graduate programs. This number accounts for both full and part-time students. However, there are an additional 20,785 members of the UAB work force, such as administrative, faculty, professional non-faculty, secretarial and service maintenance employees.
When the number of available parking spaces is compared to the number of working or enrolled individuals who need to park near campus, there is a parking space provided by UAB for approximately 70 percent of the combined student, faculty and staff populations.
Despite that, it is unlikely that the entirety of these people would be on campus at the same time and that all of them own a parking pass that allows them to park on campus. Street parking, which is managed by the city of Birmingham, is also available — for a price.
However, for the approximately 7,000 students that have already paid for a parking pass for the fall semester, many do not want to spend the extra money on a parking meter for a street spot.
“I am frustrated that we pay for parking but there somehow still manages to be no free spaces,” said Tammy Falcon, a photography student. “I cannot tell you how many cars I have seen parked in a city spot on the street with a UAB parking tag on their mirror but they have paid the meter simply because there is no where to park.”
Julia Pham, a biomedical sciences major, formerly lived on campus but now commutes to class. Since her move, she has learned about the “commuter’s struggle.”
“I’m wondering why I have to pay $130 for a parking pass yet there are cops guarding the parking decks and the lots are full by 8 [a.m.],” Pham said.
On-campus residents, who even as freshmen are allowed to keep their cars on campus, also have difficulty with the parking situation. Julie Blankenship spoke for her on-campus resident daughter, Carley Blankenship, when she said that dorm parking is also “terrible.”
“My daughter lives in New Freshman [Residence Hall] and finding a parking place is horrible. Something needs to be done,” Blankenship said. “There are maybe 10 or 12 parking spots at the dorm ... then they have to go [two] blocks behind [the] dorm to [a] parking deck where everyone else can park.”
Parking woes are not limited to just students. Faculty and staff also have experienced problems related to parking. Instead of paying for the $130 annual Lot 15 parking pass, employees can apply for either faculty (Lot 16) or remote parking.
According to the UAB and Parking transportation website, the cost for passes to faculty parking lots range from $25 to $50 per month depending on the individual’s employee status. Additionally, faculty and staff with non-remote parking passes are allowed to park in commuter student parking spaces.
Jennifer Spears, a UAB alumna who works at the Department of Ophthalmology in Volker Hall, said that she knows multiple people who pay $11 a month to park at remote parking lots on the western edge of campus, from which they can take a shuttle that operates on a fixed route to a location closer to where they need to be. Spears said they do this not because they do not want to pay the $50 per month charge, but because they cannot get approved for anything closer.
“Those stuck in remote parking have to arrive 30-plus minutes early to catch a bus to get to work and have [to wait] that same time when they are trying to leave,” Spears said. “As a staff member who does have access to decent parking and has personally not had issues, I do wonder if my deck is really full or if [UAB Parking and Transportation] has not updated their list of deck users to remove people who have transferred, moved or left UAB. Not that there is a ton of space in my deck, but it doesn’t ever seem to be completely full. I would guess there is at least one floor that is always empty and other spaces here and there.”
For those who do not want to walk the entire distance between their parking space and their class, the Blazer Express bus route is an option. However, Lee says that there is a need for the UAB community to push for increased efficiency of the bus system, among other factors related to parking and transportation, in order to improve the current situation.
“[If] I remember correctly, André Davis, the director of parking, said we spend about $1.7-1.8 million a year on the Blazer Express. I personally don’t use the Blazer Express or know of any students that do on a regular basis,” Lee said. “I don’t know how the logistics of the Blazer Express looks, but a large portion of students don’t like parking in “edge” lots that don’t feel safe and having to take a bus in a big circle before arriving at their car just to begin their commute home. One positive I do like about the Blazer Express is that it can be utilized for other UAB events like the shopping shuttle or the Honors College Retreat.”
The director of Parking and Transportation said that his department will work to improve the Blazer Express system in the future, though it will not completely fix the parking problem.
Students have called for first year freshmen residents to not be allowed to park their cars on campus as a remedy for the overcrowding issue.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I truly believe that [freshmen] shouldn’t be allowed to have cars on campus,” said Kacey Slagle, an occupational therapy student. “Other schools do it. Why not UAB? I cannot tell you how many times I lost my car freshman year because I forgot where I parked it. Unless that freshman can prove they have a job, I really don’t think they need to have a car on campus taking up parking.”
Lee, however, said that forbidding first year freshmen students from parking on campus would cut them off from opportunities to explore Birmingham during times when they are not as busy with school work, something that he liked about UAB’s current policies compared to requirements for freshmen at other schools, like at the University of Alabama.
“However, with the biggest incoming freshmen class ever, there has been a large increase in ‘07’ pass parking in the 16th Street deck with little to no increase of parking elsewhere, and I see that as a problem,” he said.
Others have called for additional parking decks or lots to be constructed around campus, especially since the new Collat School of Business building is scheduled to be built over the Lot 15 across from the University Boulevard Office Building.
“How long would it take to build a deck? And have they started? Right. But then again, the decks aren’t even safe as is, so if you do magically get a spot, you’ve got that too,” said Spencer Porch, a health care management and public health major, as part of a discussion about parking on Facebook. “I don’t mind parking remotely if there is a reliable, convenient bus system to make up for that. But instead, if you rely on the Blazer Express, good luck. Too long between stops that don’t make sense, they don’t go into easy places where people live [...] sometimes they don’t even show up... Something has to change. Why aren’t we shifting residents into these remote lots instead? They aren’t driving to class everyday.”
Building a parking deck would not be an immediate solution, however. Though he personally would like to see the construction of a parking deck, Lee recognized that it is not currently a feasible option.
“It is not that easy to just build a parking deck,” Davis said during the Senate meeting, pointing out that a parking deck is a “30 million dollar investment.” “It is a huge expenditure. We are trying to bring more parking but we are trying to figure out a better way to solve the problem. We have kept parking rates steady for eight years, but we have to find a better way at this rate. We have to consider parking in order for our overall success.”
Gunter Wisdom, who graduated this summer, believes that UAB is doing nothing to solve the problem.
“As much money as we all pay them, you know they can afford to buy property and build a few more parking decks or lots,” Wisdom said. “UAB isn’t broke.”
Many students are dealing with the parking issue by commuting to campus much earlier than their classes begin in order to secure a spot for the day.
“Having to arrive earlier than 7 [a.m.] just to secure a spot is ridiculous, especially with how much we are paying. Today I had a later class and didn’t want to come as early, so I pulled into campus at 7:35 a.m. and all of the lots on the graduate side of campus were full except for the very last gravel lot about four to five blocks away from an actual classroom building,” said Danielle Dawkins, a physical therapy student. “Not to mention that there is a gravel lot that says ‘No Parking - $100 Fine’ behind the new dorm right in between two [Lot 15s.] Why have they not done something with that? I love UAB but I despise the parking.”
For now, Davis suggests students to consider alternative modes of transportation to get to and from class.
“Thinking that you will find parking directly next to your building will not happen,” Davis said.
