Parking Space: A Hot Ticket at UC Irvine

The toughest test for UC Irvine students may come not during finals week, but on Monday, when thousands of cars stream onto the parklike campus.

As fall classes begin, about 15,000 students will be arriving. But many won’t be heading directly to class. First they’ll be driving around and around the circular campus, looking for a parking space.

There are about 8,000 spaces available, university officials say, but about 700 to 1,000 more parking permits than spaces are being issued. And this fall’s enrollment will be a record.

Saturation Parking

“Not all students come on campus at the same time,” said Michael Delo, parking administrator at UCI. Yet he acknowledged that the campus does hit saturation parking during the first two weeks of school.

Work on UCI’s first high-rise parking structure, for 1,000 cars, is to start this year. But the building won’t be completed until fall of 1988, and even that move has a drawback: the construction site will wipe out 400 existing parking slots for about a year.

“I would say this could be the first year that we truly face a real parking crisis,” said Jim Breslo, 20, a UCI junior from Newport Beach. “We have so many commuting students. And every year we have increases in enrollment.”

At other colleges and universities in the state, students often resort to off-street parking and walk a few blocks to campus. This can’t be done at UCI because the strictly patrolled City of Irvine has no off-street parking anywhere within walking distance of UCI.

“Parking has to be on the campus because there’s no place else for the students to go,” Delo said.

But students contend there aren’t enough parking places left on campus. They also say they’re angry at escalating costs for parking fees. UCI charges students $162 an academic year for parking, contrasted with $67.50 a year at Cal State Fullerton and prices ranging from $20 to $40 a year for parking at the community colleges in the county.

“I find this increase a very high price to pay for the kind of parking we have at UCI,” said Breslo. He called the fees--which this fall rose to $54 a quarter, contrasted with $48 last year--”astronomical.”

Erik Skaggs, president of student government at UCI, said, “We have a very bad situation, but sometimes you can’t get attention to bad situations unless there is a riot by students.”

Hope for Solution

Skaggs said he doesn’t advocate a riot. But he is hoping that student government, the faculty and the student newspaper can prod the UCI administration into finding expanded and inexpensive ways to take care of the campus’s perennial parking problem.

The UCI student newspaper periodically assails the administration about campus parking. Last winter, the paper, called the New University, had an editorial cartoon that depicted UCI Chancellor Jack Peltason as nearsighted about the parking problems. The newspaper said the opening of the new Bren Events Center, which draws many non-students to campus, has worsened the parking situation.

Peltason said he sees parking as a “major problem” but not an emergency. He said he and other UCI officials don’t expect campus gridlock this year, despite all the construction and disruption of former parking places.

“We’re doing our best to solve the problem,” Peltason said. “The state doesn’t provide us any dollars for parking, nor do I think the state should. So the money must be provided by the people who use the parking spaces. . . . But I’ve got to say we can’t provide everyone next-door parking--a space next to where they’re going to class.

The state requires UCI and all other state-supported colleges and universities to pay for parking-related facilities through student fees.

Said Peltason: “I think we’re being responsive to the problem. Now, I don’t give parking as high a priority as I do getting the students a classroom building or finding a place for the faculty to do their work.”

Peltason’s success in getting more classroom buildings for his growing campus is marked by construction scenes all over UCI this fall. Building projects worth about $120 million are under way, and $180 million in new projects are soon to begin. It’s the biggest construction binge since UCI opened in 1965.

‘Frustrating Issue’

Breslo, a vice president of the Associated Students of UCI, has become a specialist in the campus’s parking problem, which he calls “an extremely frustrating issue” for students.

Skaggs, 22, a senior from Bakersfield, said a prime reason he was elected president of student government was that he pledged to help the parking situation.

“The students are very concerned,” he said. “Many are worried about the rising cost of the parking fees. Everyone thinks UC students are rich. Not true. Many are working their way through the university and the increased fees are real problems.”

Skaggs said students are being gouged in the process. “Our fees pay for the parking lots and parking buildings,” he said. “UCI is thinking of building up to nine parking buildings in the future and our fees will have to keep being increased to pay for all of those. The fees are already too high, and we don’t have the first parking building completed.”

Delo, however, said UCI has no firm plans for more parking structures. “We’ll see how it works with this new one that’s going up,” he said.

Delo said the campus also is experimenting this fall with a shuttle service to a parking lot at a remote area of the campus. In addition, Delo noted, UCI is offering free parking at a new lot being built near the Verano Place student housing on campus.

Associated Students UCI, the student government, is also sponsoring again this fall a commuter shuttle from campus to Balboa Island in Newport Beach. Skaggs said yet another student-sponsored van service this fall will provide rides from campus to places in and around Irvine.

Skaggs said student government also will urge UCI’s administration to create more parking areas in undeveloped parts of the campus.

“We also want the university to reimburse student parking fees whenever it takes over a parking lot and builds on it,” said Skaggs. “Our parking fees pay for parking lots and when the university builds on those lots, right now we just lose the money that’s been invested in them. That money should be returned so more parking spaces can be built. The cost of reimbursing for a parking lot that’s taken over should be part of the cost of a new building, we feel.”

All long-range battles over the parking issue fade this week, however, as students and faculty gear up for the short-range fight: finding a place to park during the first two weeks of school.

Parking is especially difficult during that time because students are still getting their schedules ironed out, campus officials said.

“Traffic has been pretty heavy during orientation week, but it’s nothing compared to what it’ll be on opening day,” Associate Vice Chancellor Kathleen Jones said last week.

CAMPUS PARKING FEES

Parking fees are charged per quarter at UC Irvine. At Cal State Fullerton and all eight community colleges in Orange County, the fee is charged per semester. The annual charge for a student is figured by multiplying the cost for two semesters, or for three quarters in the case of UC Irvine.

The chart below shows current annual parking fees compared to previous school years.

1987-88 1986-87 1985-86 UCI $162.00 $144.00 $126.00 Cal State Fullerton 67.50 67.50 67.50 Rancho Santiago College 28.00 28.00 28.00 Cypress College 30.00 30.00 20.00 Fullerton College 24.00 16.00 16.00 Orange Coast College 20.00 20.00 20.00 Golden West College 20.00 20.00 20.00 Coastline Com. College 20.00 20.00 20.00 Saddleback College 40.00 40.00 40.00 Irvine Valley College 40.00 40.00 40.00