University Parking & Transit Questions Answered – Part I

With the increased enrollment at the University of Arkansas, many students have questions about campus parking and Razorback Transit services. In an effort to inform the students, the Parking and Transit department is presenting many of the most frequently asked questions and their answers. This is the first of three articles that will appear in Arkansas Newswire over the next several days. More information is available on the Transit and Parking website.

PARKING AVAILABILITY

Q: Why isn't more convenient parking available?

The university, while growing, has tried to keep academic buildings relatively close to one another while constructing parking at the perimeter of the campus. This means it's easier and quicker to walk between buildings but that parking is necessarily less convenient to a particular building. With increased enrollment, the loss of parking due to recent construction, and a higher percentage of students bringing vehicles to campus, the demand for parking on campus is higher than in the past. Even so, there are over 800 parking spaces available along Razorback Road during peak parking hours. These spaces are served by Razorback Transit from 7 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Q: Why aren't there more parking decks on campus?

A surface lot built on land owned by the University of Arkansas costs about $5,000 per space to build. A parking deck costs about $17,500 a space to construct. Parking permit fees would have to significantly increase to pay for more parking decks. The campus parking master plan includes one more parking garage to be constructed when financing is available and the spaces are needed.

Q: How many parking spaces are on campus?

There are 12,767 total parking spaces on campus. 4,236 are in garages and 8,531 in surface lots. There are at least 800 empty parking spaces along Razorback Road during the busiest time of the day. All of these are served by a Razorback Transit bus.

Reserved parking permits are still available for the Harmon Avenue and Garland Avenue Garages. There is a waiting list for permits for the Stadium Drive Garage. To request a garage permit, please complete a request from on the web at http://parking.uark.edu/167.php.

Q: How many vehicles are registered to park on campus?

>In FY10, 15,085 annual parking permits were purchased for car parking spaces on campus. This breaks down into the following permit categories:

Reserved: 754

Garage: 2,566

Faculty/Staff: 2,875

Student: 7,775

Resident Reserved: 1,115

There were 178 motorcycles, 384 scooters and 458 bicycles registered to park on campus last year.

Q: How is Parking Funded?

Parking on the University of Arkansas campus is operated as an auxiliary department. No tuition or state funds are put into the parking program. All the revenues generated from parking permit sales, parking meter fees, and parking violation fees are used to pay the operational and capital expenses of the parking program. These expenses include debt service of over $2.6 million for three parking garages, maintenance of more than 4,200 parking garage spaces at about $250 per space per year, maintenance of over 8,500 surface parking spaces, maintaining parking lots signs, surfaces and striping; utilities, and personnel costs to provide parking services to the campus.

In the past 10 years, campus construction projects have closed 2,220 parking spaces. During the same 10-year period, Transit and Parking has constructed 3,857 parking spaces. The money to fund this construction comes from parking revenues. The cost to replace the 2,220 lost spaces in surface parking lots today would be over $7.7 million. Replacing them in garages would cost over $33.3 million.