As parking problems worsen, local streets have begun to look as crowded as the Union parking lot around noon. Parking off campus has become a solution for students who haven’t bought a pass or who don’t want to wait for a spot to open up.
“I’ve parked where it says resident parking only. I was late, so I didn’t care,” Josh Jones, a pre- medicine student, said. “I don’t think [the residents] care or even notice.”
Neighbors of the U, however, do care?and they are not silent about it.
According to Alma Allred, director of parking services, he frequently receives complaints from people who want them to work harder to keep students from parking in, and driving through, their neighborhoods.
Gordon Haight, a transportation engineer for Salt Lake City, hears the same thing.
“We get complaints regularly,” said Haight, who is involved in regulating resident only parking areas.
He explained that parking in neighborhoods around the U is a complicated situation. A lot of the homes were built before cars were the primary means of transportation, so driveways are narrow and scarce.
Curbside parking remains the only parking available to residents?many of whom are elderly and need to park close to their homes.
Therefore, Salt Lake City has a permit parking program. Restricted parking signs are posted along the curb. Some prohibit parking from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Others permit one or two hour parking between certain hours of the day.
Residents buy sticker permits for $12 a year and are exempt from the posted parking restrictions. Everyone else receives citations.
“That seems to solve a lot of the problems,” Haight said. However, as more neighborhoods implement permit parking, students who habitually park on the curb are forced to park on the next street over.
The new residents who are affected eventually complain and petition until their streets become resident parking permit areas too.
For example, Tom Goldsmith, the minister at the First Unitarian Church on the corner of 1300 East and 600 South, circulated a petition about a month ago among the residents of that neighborhood. The church fronts a stretch of 600 East that offers 45 degree parking.
On any given day, “75 percent of the cars out here are students’,” Hal Gonzales said. Gonzales, the administrative assistant at the church, explained that the church rents its facility out to non-profit groups.
The parking spaces that students “borrow” could otherwise be used to accommodate these groups’ activities. Gonzales hopes that regulatory parking signs will be posted soon.
Students can still park off campus, but only if there are no regulations posted.
“I parked on the street the other day and got a ticket. I parked there because I saw a bunch of other cars there and thought ‘oh, here’s a space,'” said Kellie Payne, a speech communication major.
However, Haight thinks that for the most part, people respect the parking rules and regulations around the U. He also believes that light rail will be a great asset.
“We’re hoping that it will be attractive to students,” he explained.
In the future, with light rail shuttling students from park and-ride lots, off-campus parking may take on a whole new meaning.