IS THIS you? You just ran inside for a minute. When you came back, you found that those merciless angels of death at Parking and Transportation decided to pin a ticket underneath your windshield wiper, like a modern-day scarlet letter, brightly proclaiming your irresponsibility as a motorist. These types of incidents have led to longstanding less-than-warm relations between P&T and students at the University. With large parking projects like a new garage to accompany the new Arts & Sciences building slated for the future, Student Council should now redouble its efforts to smooth relations between students and P & T.
As an independent business operation, P & T falls under the same category as University Dining Services, Mailing and Housing, among others. Like these other bodies, P&T also has one basic mission - service to the University community by providing transportation services like newer and better buses, as well as more parking areas as demand increases over time. P & T does not, as some might think, make money for the University.
Parking and Transportation is here for our benefit - the roar of their orange and blue buses around Grounds and packed parking areas everywhere are testament to that. Additionally, P&T is a relatively profitable business - for example, according to P&T financial statements, last fiscal year (ending this past June) the organization pulled in over $2 million on parking permit sales alone. After fixed costs like salaries for workers, shipping and processing fees, this number is reduced to slightly less than $1.1 million. Parking violations (meters and tickets) brought in a combined $380,000 after expenses.
This may seem like a large profit, but it's not. P & T's debt service is remarkable, given their revenue. This is due to a constant return of services to the University community. For example, recent debt service on new buses works out to quarterly payments of $62,500 until May of next year. Payments on the Central Grounds parking garage will continue until 2013, ranging between half a million to nearly a million dollars every six months. It's clear from this that P&T is not out to extort money from the University community, but to help give the University more P & T options.
Council is in the position to make the scale of this investment clear to students, and really, few times have been so opportune as now. According to P & T Director Rebecca White, the past two years have been very warm between P & T and Student Council. Council P & T Affairs Committee Chair William Sowers agrees and says that P&T officials working with the committee are helpful and value Council's input.
Plans to make the Central Grounds parking garage available to students studying in Clemons Library during the night have raised the question of how best to make this parking available to students for free between selected night hours. White says $8,150 is needed to cover the cost of providing night parking in the Central Grounds garage. Council should continue to aid communication between students and P&T, brainstorm solutions to cover this cost, and smooth over long-term relations. Late-night parking work will serve as a clearly visible example of P&T's concern for students' convenience, safety and well-being.
Another opportunity for Council to serve as a liaison between P&T and students involves the construction of a new parking garage on Jefferson Park Avenue to accompany the demolition of New Cabell Hall. Council should work to foster student input in the scale of this decision, perhaps in the form of online surveys, and continuing "House Council Tours," which bring Council officials to speak and get input at on-Grounds housing locations. By doing this, students will get an early opportunity to voice their concerns over location, pricing and parking enforcement that will become a part of this facility. This same approach led to a more student-friendly pricing policy at the Central Grounds parking garage about two years ago.
White wants to improve and expand communication between students and P&T. She feels it's the key to an improvement in mutual student-P&T understanding. Sowers agrees, and both P&T and Council have moved in this direction, promoting educational outreach programs for students as well as supporting petitions for genuine parking concerns. Council is now poised to help students and P&T find stable common ground - having Council promote dialogue now can only help the situation.
(Austen Givens' column normally appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at agivens@cavalierdaily.com.)
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