Hawaii may be paradise on Earth for tourists, but it’s a game of musical parking spots for University of Hawaii students. KHNL TV reports that 20k University of Hawaii students must compete for 5K parking spots. "It's competitive, yah, early bird gets the worm, kind of a thing," admits U of H student Justin Lozano. Once the official parking spaces are taken, creative parking takes over. Despite the idyllic island life, local residents aren't happy with the result. J.R. DeGroote spoke for many when he decried “people blocking our parking, parking on the grass, taking our parking spots.” While students are gagging for more parking spaces, school officials say enough ain't never gonna be enough. They suggest that Aloha State academics take advantage of a $100 per semester bus pass.
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i bet the university has no problem selling parking passes to all 20,000 students though, which makes every single one feel entitled to that patch of grass in the quad.
I don’t see how that’s very different from most universities. At my school, the parking passes are free, but unless you get to campus at 7:50AM or after 6PM you aren’t going to get a space. You can pay $225 per school year to get a ‘reserved pass’ that lets you park in the reserved section of a single parking lot of your choosing. Problem is, they also have a much more expensive reserved pass that allows you to park in reserved in ANY parking lot.. so even though I have a reserved pass for one parking lot, that reserved section can be overfilled, all with legitimate parkers who have the right to be there. People just park in the grass or along the side of roadways to the tune of $35 dollar tickets (which you are guaranteed to get at least 2 of while you are in a 2 hour class).
The only lot that isn’t always packed solid is the freshman dorm parking lot, which is quite literally 1.0 miles from the nearest academic building on campus.
There’s plenty of land but no initiatives to build a new parking lot or provide better city bus routes to campus..
The university I attended built several parking garages for the non-commuter student, which, when coupled with the campus transit system, lessened the competition for parking spots for the commuting student body. This was after several years of record profits fines, which supplied the parking nazis student workers with posh new Jeeps to ride around in.
Personally, I was too cheap to park illegally. With tickets starting at $20, and exponentially getting larger by the infraction, I just laced up my cross-trainers.
When I was in college a parking pass for the semester was ~$500, and no more passes than spots available were issued.
The solution here – issue 5000 passes only, and charge quadrouple what they’re charging now.
That’ll solve the parking problem and encourage public transport/bicycles
Maybe give motorcyclists and incentive too, like special parking and cheaper rates
When I was attending Texas A&M (WHOOP!!), the fee for the transit system was charged to EVERY student ($50/semester) so there was incentive to use the A&M buses. I assume this is still the way it works.
When a student purchased a parking permit, they were assigned a lot number. The student could request a specific lot, but permits were assigned based on class and availability. I don’t know how many permits they sold, but there always seemed to be parking and spaces were much easier to come by with this system.
Of course, it is easier than the Hawaii system since A&M has a little over 20,000 spaces for about 45,000 students.
By the way, passes currently cost about $240 and the transit fee is now $60.
The University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) had this problem in a huge way. When they finally built dorms on campus, they took away quite a bit of the parking that was previously available to everyone. Now, you would think that a commuter campus would have a large amount of parking, but noooo, not UNO. There used to be a horse racing track on the south campus where people could park, and easily ride a shuttle to the main campus, but eventually they closed off all of those lots and people now have to park in the garage at a nearby mall, and then ride the shuttle. And of course, they pay for the privilege. Student dorm parking was pretty tight too, since nearly everyone had a car (no restriction on car ownership for freshmen). They were happy to sell everyone a parking permit, but it guaranteed you nothing (and you paid more and more each semester for that privilege).
It was a $20 fine to park in the wrong lot (say, a staff lot), but only like, a $5 fine for parking on the grass. You can imagine what that resulted in. Parking keeps filling up faster as more people go to school there, yet they’ve done nothing to try to solve the problem long-term. It’s not really a surprise, since Omaha as a whole has done nothing to build a usable public transportation system. The uni officials have reserved parking, and love the money restricted parking brings in, so why would they change things?
I’m with cretinx: issue only 5000 parking passes and jack the price up enough that supply equals demand.
Our university (University of Saskatchewan) sells parking passes and there is definitely more demand than supply, so it wasn’t easy to get a pass. If you got a pass, at least you knew there would be a spot available when you showed up for class. I avoided the gong show by cycling year-round. If I can bike to school at -40F, can’t these people in Hawaii get themselves to school without a car?
Universities like to think of themselves as noble institutions that eschew the detested profit motive, but when it comes to operating parking lots, they turn into robber barons. Clumsy robber barons, however–the supply/demand curve is beyond their ken.
I go to UH, but luckily I live within walking distance so I don’t have this issue (though I sure pay for the privledge in rent). That said, isn’t it reasonable to expect the university to provide adequate parking? If you went to work and they told you to go find a spot on the street or take the bus, you’d be livid! Considering that most UH students are local and many live at home and commute (often these particular students don’t have much money either), there is reason for the noise. Add to that students in the dorms who have cars and you end up with a mess.
Telling people just to take the bus is BS. I have a bus pass myself (no car right now), and I can tell you getting to many places by bus requires lots of time, planning, or both. Honolulu is not a compact city like Boston either, and the bus is not as reliable and doesn’t come as often as the subways do in Boston or New York. Especially for students with jobs, the bus just won’t do. It’s easy for you guys complain of spoiled college students when you have full time jobs, make real money, and have cars yourselves, but many students simply have very little choice but to drive.
All the comments further illustrate what a money-grabbing-con that higher education has been evolving into.
I went to the University of Windsor for a couple years, and although parking never seemed that hellish, it seemed to be a similiar situation where if you didn’t show up early enough, you weren’t getting parking until the day was over. I was lucky though, since in my first year, I lived on campus (so I was one of the ones hogging a parking spot), and second year, I lived close enough to campus to walk (my work was also within walking distance of campus).
Although, @Adamatari – you’ve basically summarized the parking situation at my workplace. Management is allowed to park on the lot, while the rest of us are supposed to park on the street.
I’ll add that if the parking prices were made high enough to reflect demand, that might create a return-on-investment situation that makes it economical for the university to create more parking. Nobody should have to pay for the space and infrastructure involved in parking except the students that use it.
Sometime during his senior year at a state college in Michigan, film-maker (and college drop-out) Michael Moore drove to his college and after cruising the lots for an hour or so looking for a parking place, he gave up, went home and never returned. He never graduated.
Back in the day when I went to college and small cars still generally weighed under a ton, owners of 1st and 2nd gen Honda Civics, VWs, and similar vehicles would return from class to find their cars mysteriously moved from their original parking places on the street or in lots to the lawn or on the sidewalk, where they were also ticketed.
More recently, I chose my graduate school based largely on the fact that it had convenient parking. As a working adult I did not have time to cruise around hunting or walking miles and miles to class. I ended up finding a school where I was able to park just outside of the classroom. Easy in, easy out.
Parking is something that schools, especially commuter colleges, need to anticipate and plan for.
And if they can’t provide parking for all of their students, they should limit enrollment to those whom they are able to accomodate.