The Montana Board of Regents charges the two MUS Presidents to devise both a long term and current parking solution for board consideration at the May meeting. This "parking solution" will address and correct the current significant problems of lack of capacity and access to parking spaces on the two flagship campuses. The "parking solution" will also address and correct the long term parking access problems facing the two flagship campuses in the future. The board will consider any and all options. These options may include, but are not limited to: New parking garages, increased spaces, additional parking lots, minor increases in fees to pay for such "parking solutions," bond-financing, and alternative transportation (Dornblaser bus, park-N-ride, yellow bikes, and bike racks)

 

UM's Parking Costs FY2003 (text and numbers taken from UM website):


1/2 year permit: $73.00
Full year permit: $146.00
Reserved: $438.00
Hourly lots $0.75 per hour stub machines located in the lots
Day Pass $2.00 (available at Business Services, UC Ticket Office,Office of Public Safety)

 

Students, faculty, and staff all can get a reserved parking decal. The waiting list is about 200 people. Reserve parking is a tow away area. Cars without the proper decal will be towed away. It is not reserved for campus guests but assigned to people who pay 3 times the amount of a regular decal. The reserve participants are not allowed to park anywhere but in their assigned space.

 

MSU's Parking Costs (text and numbers taken from MSU website):

  • Parking on MSU-Bozeman campus is a privilege, not a right. 
  • Ignorance of the regulations will only hurt you!

 

 Decal Type

Full Year

1/2 Year

Addt'l Vehicle

Summer Only

 R1

$500

 N/A

 N/A

N/A

 R2-R4

 $370

 $240

$50

N/A

 R5

 $310

 $200

$50

N/A

 R6-R9

$310

$200

$50

N/A

 SB

 $115

$75

$60

$60

 E

 $115

$75

N/A

$60

 D

 $75

N/A

N/A

$30

 F

 $60

N/A

N/A

$30

 FH

 $60

N/A

N/A

$30

 MC

 $50

N/A

N/A

$25

 

Reason for the proposal:

I almost always run to campus from home. I was therefore a bit perplexed when my student peers complained to me that the parking conditions at UM-Missoula (and to some extent MSU-Bozeman) are horrendous. My fellow students described a nightmare scenario where everybody has a parking permit (cost: $73.00 per semester at UM), but nobody can find a parking space when they need it. Additionally, they spoke of constant scenarios where students with parking permits are forced (because of a lack of spaces) to additionally pay an hourly rate to park in the many hourly-rate spaces now common on the campus. While a regular student parking space often remains very difficult to locate, there often exists many empty reserve spaces. These spaces attempt to cater to those individuals (including students) that wish to pay the amount of $438.00 per year to (almost, but not quite) guarantee that they will have a place to park. In jest, one might wonder: why not just make all the students pay $438 per year! The increased cost would probably reduce demand and that would fix the parking problem! Unfortunately, under that unjust scenario very few people could even afford to park on campus at all.

To make matters worse, a very significant percentage of the students that own a parking permit now typically park five blocks or more from the campus and walk. I can only imagine how visitors that wish to use the open-community library on campus make do. In summary, Missoula is not Manhattan, but the parking on campus sure seems like it. The student and community access to each of our campuses remains incumbent upon the availability of accessible parking. We just approved a large 4000+ stadium expansion at a cost of $2.5 million dollars. What are we saying to our students and community leaders when we can always find the money for more football seats, but at the same time fail to provide more student parking spaces or alternative transportation access?

 

Submitted by Student Regent Hur

March 20-21, 2003