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Parking, parking fee, traffic and construction changes on campus this summer

May 22, 2012

This summer, you may notice some changes to parking, parking fees, parking lots and traffic flow on campus.

These changes are to improve parking on campus as well as to support construction projects.

Some changes to parking on campus are permanent and some temporary during summer hours while lots are improved.

Changes to parking lots on campus

Several parking lots will be closed for maintenance or expansion this summer and during the next academic year, and other lots will be permanently closing to accommodate construction projects.

Employees and students who normally park in the impacted lots are encouraged to park in lots with capacity for additional parking. Those lots include the Moby Lot, Hartshorn Lot (after August), lot #240 – the large lot south of South Academic Village, the University Square lot near the Alumni Building, the Lake Street Parking Garage, and a temporary lot at Laurel and Shields that will be added in October.

Summer and fall parking lot changes are:

May

• The Hartshorn and Library lots are closed for reconfiguration. When the lots reopen in August, they’ll be combined into a new Morgan Library Lot that will add 150 spaces to parking capacity on campus.
• The Aylesworth/Braiden Hall lot will close temporarily until August.
• One half of the Corbett lot will close in May through the summer, and the remainder of the lot will close permanently in December.
• The University Apartments lot will close permanently.
• Pitkin Street will be closed in front of Braiden Hall beginning at 7 a.m. on May 31 and continuing until 5 p.m. Friday, June 1. (The closure was originally scheduled for May 24-25.) Kiewit Construction will cut and cap the water main for Braiden Hall. The cut, cap and backfill of the water main will be done on May 31 and repaving will be done on Friday, June 1. 

August

• One half of the Braiden Hall/Aylesworth lot will be open and one half will be closed in August to serve as a staging area for construction during the Braiden Hall remodel.

October

• A temporary lot, to be named the Greenhaven Lot, will be developed at the corner of Laurel and Shields adjacent to the Conference Services Building.

Also, in the spring of 2012, parking on the east side of the railroad tracks near the Mason Street Corridor will be permanently closed for the city’s Mason Street Corridor Expansion project.

With the construction of new parking spaces on campus over the last several years, as well as the construction of the university’s first parking garage, the number of parking spaces on campus has remained nearly static. Since 2007, 736 spaces have been lost on the main campus while 870 have been added. In the next twelve months, another 657 will be lost and 150 added. Total, since 2007, will be 1,393 lost and 1,020 added.

Parking permit fee increases

CSU’s Parking Services will be implementing a fee increase for the 2012-13 fiscal year. The increase was initially slated for fiscal year 2011 (the 2010-2011 academic year), but was delayed during the years when CSU employees did not receive a salary increase.

The parking fee increase that will take effect in July was approved by the Board of Governors in 2007 as part of a series of four annual parking permit fee increases. Three of those four scheduled increases took effect in July of 2007, 2008 and 2009, but the last scheduled increase in the series, which was originally scheduled to be implemented in July of 2010, was delayed due to the salary freeze at CSU. The increase was intended to cover the cost of specific improvements to parking on campus – many of which have already been made. Necessity now has prompted Parking Services to move ahead with the 2010 scheduled fee increase due to a drop in parking permit revenues.

Typically, parking costs at CSU increase almost every year, as the cost to maintain and construct parking services increases, because the state of Colorado requires that parking on state property pay for itself. CSU works to minimize these increases when possible while providing incentives for carpooling and alternative transportation.

With this increase, CSU employees will pay $261. CSU students will pay $234 for commuter permits and $303 for residence hall permits. More information.

Parking permit fees fund parking lot maintenance and improvements, and this package of four scheduled increases also funded the construction of the university’s first parking garage. All parking improvements and construction are cash-funded through the fees. Feasibility of a second parking garage is currently being studied by the university. 

Since the 2007 parking fee increases, Parking Services has cash funded more than $5.2 million in parking and alternative transportation improvements on campus with parking permit and parking ticket revenue.

Those improvements include:

• Adding bike racks on campus. There currently are about 13,860 bike parking spaces on campus.  Campus accommodates up to 15,000 bike visits a day during peak biking days.
• Building a parking garage with 865 parking spaces for employees, students and visitors.
• Building a parking lot immediately west of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital.
• Replacing the parking lot surface in the Howes Street Lot
• Replacing the surface of the Engineering Lot
• Modernizing and upgrading parking meters on campus to be more user-friendly for customers

In addition, Parking Services has brought Zipcar’s car-sharing program to campus.

CSU’s parking permit fees are still below many other area universities. CU- Boulder employees pay $471-$561 a year, UNC employees pay $290 a year, and DU employees and students pay from $168 to $810 a year. UNC students pay $255 a year.

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Contact: Dell Rae Moellenberg
E-mail: DellRae.Moellenberg@colostate.edu
Phone: (970) 491-6009