On Jan. 9, the U was scheduled to lose 650 parking spots to the Olympics, but it didn’t.

Salt Lake Organizing Committee officials announced they would not need the spots until Jan 18.

“It helps us out a lot,” said Alma Allred, director of Transportation and Parking Services. At this point, anything helps, he said.

By February, SLOC will have accumulated 3,200 parking spaces at the U, which equals more than one-third of the U’s total parking spots.

U officials are hoping students continue to ride the recently opened university TRAX line. Ridership the first week exceeded expectation. That week 5,000 riders a day came to school on light rail, but officials fear that number has declined.

On Jan. 3, the first day of Spring Semester, Allred was excited because at around 10 a.m., there were 500 vacant parking spaces across campus.

“This is incredible. We are pleased that students are willing and wanting to ride TRAX,” he said in a previous interview.

The U parking crisis has been a focus of local media, receiving attention from Salt Lake’s daily newspapers, television news teams and other news agencies across the state.