UW junior Brittany Lindemann rushed out of her class, hoping to beat UW campus police to her car parked near by.
She quickly realized that would not be the case as she spied the dreaded paper on her windshield flapping in the breeze. For many drivers on UW campus, the limited parking remains an irritating problem.
Director of Transportation Services, Lance Lunsway said the campus reconstruction project strives to address the limited parking.
\We're planning on turning surface lots into structures, to provide more parking and better use of real estate,"" she said.
According to an e-mail from Gary Brown, Director of Planning and Landscape Architecture, the master plan for the campus includes the redevelopment of existing parking, moving from low-density surface parking lots to higher-density and better land use of parking ramps.
The plans, however, allocate few new spaces.
""Our goal is to maintain the approximately 13,000 parking spaces we currently have on campus,"" Brown stated. ""We are not adding additional parking or reducing our overall count of parking on campus with new building projects.""
Many students and faculty feel underground parking ramps, like the lot underneath Grainger Hall, may work best for the UW campus. Brown, however, said underground parking is not cost effective.
""Typically, we try to look at underground parking for all new buildings but in most cases it is cost-prohibitive, especially on small building site footprints,"" he said.
The current cost of an assigned parking space, ranging from $450 to $1,015 according to Lunsway, would nearly double with the construction of underground parking. Brown also stated underground parking creates increased danger for pedestrians.
""We are also trying to keep major parking facilities out toward the major arterial streets to reduce pedestrian/vehicular conflicts on campus,"" he said.
That leaves students and faculty with little to look forward to.
The UW-Transportation Services' TDM program offers commuting staff free bus passes and discounted park-and-ride rates in addition to assigned parking spots. Students are also offered the bus passes.
Lunsway said UW-Madison's participation in this initiative, part of a nationwide program designed to reduce the number of vehicles on campuses, is more advanced than other schools.
""On our campus 50 percent of faculty and staff use a different form of transportation. Nationwide, it is 30 percent,"" he said.
Lindemann takes little solace in these figures.
""It's really frustrating. It makes me angry that some of my professors have to constantly move their cars throughout the day,"" she said. ""With tuition increases every year, there should be enough parking for everyone.\
