At a meeting Monday night, the Graduate and Professional Student Council heard a presentation on next year's transportation changes and offered suggestions about how parking at the University could be improved.
Graduate and professional students, who largely live off campus, expressed concern that parking was difficult for them and questioned how biking, carpooling and busing from off-campus could become more feasible options.
Cathy Reeve, the director of parking and transportation, presented planned adaptations for next year, including the closing of the Divinity School parking lot, warning that these changes will have a domino effect on parking across campus. Part of the long-term solution will be a 550-spot parking deck scheduled to open fall 2004. In the meantime, Reeve's department is developing a response plan, which could include increased biking options, as well as possibly getting shuttles from campus to off-campus apartments.
Reeve, who came to the University six months ago from North Carolina State University, said she hopes to make the University more accessible to the community, as she said other neighboring universities are.
"If you are not able to park your car, you should at least be able to park your bike," Reeve said, but added that these plans are still somewhat distant.
The students at the meeting said they thought that undergraduate parking concerns often take priority over graduate and professional student concerns.
"Undergraduates always take precedence," said Andrea Franzius, a graduate student in history. "For them, it is a matter of convenience; for us, it is a matter of necessity."
Many council members proposed that some undergraduate students, particularly freshmen and sophomores, should not be allowed to have cars.
Another solution could be opening lower-cost parking spots farther away from campus with frequent bus service between the lots and campus, Reeve said.
Additionally, she said the University has looked at possibly creating a long-term lot to improve parking efficiency by allowing visitors making short trips to campus to park in more accessible spaces. However, Reeves said her department was concerned that such a lot would invite criminal attacks on the vehicles.
"It suggests odd priorities that the safety of SUVs is more important than the security of the people using them," said Andrew Sparling, a fifth-year history graduate student.
GPSC President Elayne Heisler, a third-year sociology graduate student, aired her concerns that the University's parking policy does not change over the summer when most undergraduates have left.
"In the summer, graduate students are still here but the parking policy does not change, so people still have to park far away and trek in, walking past miles of empty spaces," Heisler said.
Reeve also said the prices for parking permits would likely increase next year.
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