Columns:: Driven to succeed: Parking and transportation director discusses purpose, procedures of new parking plan

since 12/15/98

Columns::April 1, 2002

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Campus News

Driven to succeed
Parking and transportation director discusses purpose, procedures of new parking plan

By Beth Roberts
beth@uga.edu

Joyce Hardman, director of parking and transportation, is overseeing the development and implementation of UGA’s new parking plan. She talked with Columns about the purpose of the plan and the procedures that will go into effect next fall.

Joyce Hardman, director of parking and transportation

Columns: We must be about to get our parking permit renewal forms.

Hardman: We won’t have actual renewal forms this year--we’ll have a Web site where everybody will tell us their preferred lots. That process will start next month. We want to get it up before classes are over because students will be leaving and professors won’t be in town. Of course, with a Web site it doesn’t matter where you are, and it’s not first come, first served.
The Web site will be open until around mid-July, because we have to wait until housing students are assigned to their units. They can’t tell us where they want to park until they know where they’re going to be living. And then a computer program will allocate people to lots based upon different priorities and criteria, which have not been established yet. That’s what the task force is helping to define.
Our original concept was to assign a priority to an individual, but we’ve had all kinds of different suggestions--allowing some groups to pick first or setting different priorities for individual lots, such as putting housing residents near residence halls, or giving graduate TAs, who make very little, first choice at the cheaper lots. We’re trying to take all of that into consideration. I think, actually, either way, the result will about be the same, based on e-mail that we’ve received. A lot of people are very concerned about continuing to park very close to their building, and a lot of people are very concerned about getting a cheaper lot. I think there’s enough of a balance that it’s going to work out that way anyway, but people will feel more comfortable if we can come up with a system. We’re looking at all the different suggestions that we’ve gotten from the task force.

Columns: Who’s on the task force?

Hardman: For a while the task force was growing every day--about 30 people. They are listening to input from every group. Students, faculty, staff--they’re giving us their recommendations for how to set up the priority system.
There’s a lot of concern that every group on campus be represented, so we added members after we started. The Student Government Association sent a cross-section of undergraduates. The Graduate Student Association, faculty members, Staff Council--everybody is represented.
It is not a question of a majority vote. What we want the task force to do is give input to Parking Services from the different constituencies on campus. The group is getting really large, but it’s a good cross-section.
In addition we have people from Disability Services, from Athens Transit, from Bike Athens, and from Campus Transit and University Architects.

Columns: You also collected e-mail comments from people on campus.

Hardman [pointing to a foot-high stack of paper]: I printed them all out--there they are, and we went through them. We made a list of the questions, and our Web site will list all the questions, the answers, and how we got to that answer. We also intend to have some large group forums to answer questions. We’re working with Training and Development.
I don’t think the process is going to be complicated, but people do need to understand designated parking and how it’s going to be different. You’re going to tell us where you prefer to park, and then based on priorities you’ll be assigned to a lot and that’s where you’ll go every day.

Columns: How about overselling?

Hardman: The bigger lots can be oversold, because 100 percent of the people don’t come to work or to school 100 percent of the time. I think initially we won’t oversell. That means that we’ll have to have an overflow area, and some people will be parking in the overflow area and will be worked into the system as we determine how much we can oversell each individual lot.

Columns: Is that feasible?

Hardman: We’ve operated the North Campus deck this way since it opened. We’ve got 1,200 spaces and 1,600 active permits, and it’s never full--we still can accommodate visitors.
We’re going to be in the lots every day, counting cars, and every week we can update the system. If you don’t get your first choice, you’re going to be on a waiting list, and when people move out of the lot, we’ll contact you. It’s a dynamic thing. And most people will get their choice from the beginning.

Columns: What about people who don’t have access to the Web?

Hardman: We’re going to offer them a paper form that they can fill out and send to us and we can enter it for them. Our big concern is being able to contact them about where their parking is going to be. We’ll have to have a way to contact people who don’t have e-mail.

Columns: The increase in fees is a major concern.

Hardman: Of course everybody would love for parking to be free, and they’d love to be able to park where they want to. I think a lot of people do not understand that Parking Services receives no state funding. That was a decision the legislature made years ago. If the state allocated money to things like parking spaces, then naturally our state taxes would have to increase. The people who use the parking resources pay for them.
Parking has been undervalued, so we have to increase the fees. It’s a bitter pill, but if we don’t take it now it’s just going to get worse. We asked that at the same time we increase fees we go to designated parking, which we see as a better service. Some people have said, “Don’t change the way you do it, just charge us more.” That was probably the most surprising thing I’ve heard, because for five years I’ve heard “We hate this hunting license!”
When I first came to work at the university 20 years ago, we didn’t pay for parking at all. Strangely enough, I have every form that I ever filled out for parking. That’s how I know that we’ve only had three increases in the last 20 years. The parking system has evolved, and this is the first time we’ve had a plan--and it’s very hard for people to move away from what they’ve been accustomed to. I can understand why it’s hard for people to trust us that this is going to work.

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Columns is produced by the UGA News Service, a unit of UGA Public Affairs.
Beth Roberts: Columns editor, Juliett Dinkins: Columns managing editor,
Janet Beckley: Columns art director. Peter Frey: Columns photo editor

Questions or comments should be directed to columns@uga.edu