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 This Week's Stories:

Parking Rates to Increase in Fiscal Year 1998-99

posted May 13, 1998

Next fiscal year’s rates for individual parking permits will increase 7.5 percent, said Nadesan Permaul, director of transportation.

The new rates will go into effect Aug. 1 and will appear as payroll deductions on Sept. 1 paychecks.

The increase will fund development of more parking, subsidize alternative transportation, and cover operational costs that continue to rise, said Kevin Hagerty, manager of parking administration.

This is the first core parking rate increase in nine years, although rates of other parking permits have risen slightly during that time. In 1990-91, central campus permit holders’ rates increased $1.50 per month, and faculty-staff permits increased $1 per month.

“The only other parking-related increases were a raise in the annual transportation fee which supports transit alternatives, and the implementation of a disabled permit fee,” said Permaul.

Since 1995, Parking and Transportation has maximized the number of parking spaces to make up for spaces lost to construction and other campus changes, said Hagerty.

“We repainted parking lots to create additional spaces, increased the attendant parking budget from $350,000 to almost $800,000 per year, spent nearly $50,000 a year on new bicycle racks, and reduced the number of hours for limited access parking spaces,” said Hagerty.

Yet, according to Permaul, during the same three years public transportation costs rose while the hours of operation and routes were reduced, and AC Transit ended its popular student-class pass program. As a result, the new campus parking spaces created weren’t enough to accommodate the increased need for parking.

Berkeley is famous for its lack of parking. Even Alex Trebek, on campus recently to tape the TV show Jeopardy!, was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle saying he found Berkeley “a cute little community. Kind of tight. Kind of crowded – no parking.”

Permaul said department rates will not rise because the department budget process is completed for next year. “However,” he said, “next year those rates will also increase.”

Currently, the campus has 6,906 parking spaces. Of these, 904 are serviced by attendants. Another 1,643 are for disabled parking, service maintenance, motorcycles, loading and unloading, and other types of limited-access parking. That leaves only 4,359 for a daily campus population of more than 45,000, not counting visitors.

“Simply stated, we need more parking spaces and we need more money to maintain and improve the parking program,” said Permaul. “In the past, parking rates at Berkeley have been kept below market rate out of deference to our community. Even with these increases, our rates are still below market rates for parking.”

Permaul said parking rates for car pool parking will remain the same, and subsidies for public transportation will be increased.

For information, call Kevin Hagerty at 643-1954, or email hagerty@uclink4.berkeley.edu.


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