Garage 5 appears deserted at first glance. Rows of empty spots line the first floor of the garage located behind Hume Hall; however, students continue to climb the levels searching for a space to park.
The red decal markings that once adorned the cement walls of the first level of Garage 5 have been traded for new signs that read “Pay-By-Plate.” This change moved the red decal parking up, freeing space for daily parking.
“Our plan pre-Covid was to provide more daily pay parking, similar to the Welcome Center Garage,” Scott Fox CAPP Senior Director of Transportation and Parking Services wrote in an email. “This parking is used by guests and visitors, campus tours, events, as well as by students, faculty and staff.”
TAPS decided to create more of this daily pay parking on a portion of the ground level of Garage 5. Before making the transition, Fox said TAPS opened Garage 14 in February 2020, moved the green decal parking out of Garage 5 and into this new garage, moved the red decal parking up in Garage V, and made sure there was enough Red Decal parking left in Garage 5.
Once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, TAPS considered delaying this change. However, it received requests from students and faculty who wanted somewhere to park infrequently without having to purchase a decal.
Decal prices for students are available to be paid annually at $160, per semester at $80, monthly at $35 or weekly at $15. Meanwhile, the daily parking spots charge $6 as a daily fee, $4 for a two-hour limit and $2 for a 45-minute limit.
Prior to Garage 5’s ground-floor transformation, the only short-term or all-day parking accessible to visitors, or those without a decal, was located in the Welcome Center Parking Garage at the Reitz Union.
Across the street from the Reitz Union, the construction of a new Data Science and Information Technology building, named Malachowsky Hall, displaces 362 orange decal spaces, according to Fox. These 362 spaces found a new home in Garage 14, the university’s largest garage with over 2,000 spaces.
Garage 14’s 2,000 spaces provide parking for orange, orange/blue and green decals. Graduate and professional students living off-campus are eligible for green decals, whereas faculty and staff members are eligible for orange or blue decals.
Undergraduate students who live on campus typically have red 1 or red 3 decals, and undergraduates who live off campus can purchase Park & Ride Decals. Garage 14 does not provide parking for undergraduate students, but Fox wrote that no red decal spots were lost within the transition to pay-by-plate. There are no plans to create additional parking for those with Red Decals.
Pay-by-plate parking is a new technology that TAPS implemented in place of pay-by-space. “The Red Decal parking in Garage 5 remain underutilized at this time,” Fox wrote.
“It has some benefits for the customer (you never forget your space number or enter it incorrectly), plus some operational benefits for TAPS,” he wrote. “The new technology is a different way to pay for parking, but it does not generate any additional revenue.”
In regard to revenue, the effects of COVID-19 impacted TAPS drastically. “TAPS lost millions of dollars in decal revenue when we made the decision to waive parking decal fees for the summer semester,” Fox wrote. “We continue to experience decal revenue under our projections because our campus has not returned to full occupancy.”
The profitability of pay-by-plate parking in Garage 5 remains unknown due to a lack of visitors from campus tours and large events, which would require daily or hourly parking.
“Revenue from new pay parking in Garage 5 is sparse and will remain quite low until we see a return to a more traditional schedule of campus events,” Fox wrote.
With these changes, finding parking as an undergraduate student with a decal remains unaltered. However, those who did not purchase a decal and wish to park on campus for a short period of time can find more daily parking on the ground floor of Garage 5.