By Ashlyn Beck | News Editor, Lauren Holcomb | LTVN Broadcast Reporter
Parking Services confirmed the overselling of permits to Lot 30 on 7th Street and James Ave., but is taking steps to minimize fallout from the error.
LTVN’s Lauren Holcomb shows us how the parking permit overflow impacts students.
Director of Parking and Transportation Services Matt Penney said the new permit allotment system glitched while distributing permits, causing the oversell.
“We set up how many permits we want to sell for students in every zone, [and] all of that was great, but one one of them oversold,” Penney said.
According to Penney, it’s normal for the system to oversell parking passes to some degree. The design assumes that not all permit holders will be in the garage or lot at the same time, so they intentionally oversell lots and garages. However, Lot 30 was oversold to an extent that has caused consistent issues for permit holders.
“If we sell you a permit for $365, we want you to find a place to park. It’s a big thing in our office, and we were at a rate where that wasn’t going to happen,” Penney said.
Parking Services did have to return some permits, but offered three things to those whose permits were returned, Penney said.
“We gave them a full refund. We put them on the front of the line to get the Speight Avenue garage. A lot of commuters like that garage, and they get first pick of the Speight garage in the spring,” Penney said.
In addition to this, students were allowed to park in faculty and staff spots 30 times, according to Penney. Students with this virtual 30-day permit will not receive parking violations for parking in faculty and staff spots. Parking Services keeps track of the uses of permit holders as they drive by their cars, taking away one use per day. The count is updated every night, and students can track their number through an online portal.
According to Penney, the 30-day permit is intended to transition students into finding other parking options.
“We wanted to give them something that could still go like they imagined, but gave them time to transition, probably towards the Ferrell Center [or] maybe street parking,” Penney said.
The only issue with the 30-day permit is that it takes spots away from faculty and staff. Penney declined to cite exactly how many people received the 30-day permit due to the oversell, but said it was “a lot.”
Lanisa Tovar, office manager and coordinator for the journalism department, said she suspected something was wrong when she had more trouble than usual finding parking in the morning at Dutton garage.
“Pretty much all the spaces are full by probably 8:05 [a.m.]. It used to not be that way. There used to be a couple of spaces, maybe one or two left before 8:30 [a.m.]. It’s not like that anymore,” Tovar said.
According to Tovar, it’s usually hard to find parking at the beginning of the year, but this year has been worse than most.
“To have to park on the fourth floor at 8:10 [a.m.] was a little outrageous,” Tovar said.
Penney said he had heard about faculty and staff problems with parking and said it was common during this time of the year.
“We’re hoping this is just the start of the year [and] it isn’t necessarily tied to the other situation,” Penney said.
Parking Services shows grace to students at the beginning of the year, Penney said. It’s common for students to park in the wrong place or to park in a garage or lot without a permit.
“What’s happening is our tickets are flowing, and a lot of our tickets are for people without permits at all, and so we think a lot of the challenges in the first couple of weeks are going to start disappearing,” Penney said.
For those who are having trouble parking, Penney said he recommends utilizing Ferrell Center parking. While it’s further from campus, it’s completely free and has two shuttles running to and from campus.
“That’s actually a great option,” Penney said. “[In] a lot of places the bus ride is a lot longer and a lot more crowded.”
Except for the one lot that oversold, Penney said that the new distribution system actually worked very well. Once the problems are cleaned up, the system should work well consistently, and Parking Services plans on continuing to use the system in the future.
“We will take care of this one hiccup, and hopefully everybody [will] forget about it by Christmas time,” Penney said.
