The students of the University of Idaho wish to bring attention to the high demand of parking permits for the U of I's campus that is not currently met by the available permits. 

Current numbers show that there are 1,656 available parking permits to students (U of I Long-Term Permit Pricing Plan). These include overnight parking; which is a necessity for most. When adding in parking spaces that do not have overnight availability the number of permits rises to 2,756, (U of I Long-Term Permit Pricing Plan). But, when this number is placed next to student enrollment, 10,791,(uidaho.edu) it barely meets 1% of potential demand. Students currently have access to the Silver (751 permits), Green (225 permits), Economy (200 permits), Purple (480 permits), and Blue (1,100 permits), (U of I Long-Term Permit Pricing Plan). However, purple is only available to University of Idaho Greek life students and Blue is only daytime parking. Non-greek students have a total of 1,176 permits with overnight parking and 2,276 available including daytime only. There are more than 1,700 students in the Greek community. More than 1,000 live in chapter facilities and 600 are first-year students, according to the uidaho.edu FAQ website. Comparing these statistics to available parking permits allotted to staff, the numbers are very different.

The U of I currently has 2,252 full time employees according to the University's website and a total of 3,200 available parking permits 2,400 of which have no overnight parking (U of I Long-Term Permit Pricing Plan). These numbers exceed the demand by quite a bit and due to this the University would be losing money. At the very least a potential 148 permits are going to waste. Currently, Gold (800 permits), Orange (700 permits), and Red (600 permits) are sold exclusively to staff members.

The parking and transportation's mission is currently, "to become a campus where a personally owned vehicle is not required to meet commuter and campus resident mobility needs." This is according to the Future Plans of the Parking and Transportation page on the University of Idaho Website. However, while this may be a good mission to have, it is not possible at this time. When taking into account an outsider commute, such as going to the grocery store, it is necessary for students to have vehicular transportation. The University has kindly offered several services for students who need to commute throughout Moscow; SMART Transit, Moscow VanPool, Vandal Access: on-campus ADA mobility assistance, and they even mention taxis. While these options may be efficient for some students, others might not be able to meet the time constraints as the SMART Transit has specific pick up and drop off times, the VanPool is a paid service, and taxis are also a paid service. Students also might have difficulty returning home in cases of emergency or leisure, especially those students who live in remote areas. There could also be the issue we face with seating restrictions that have been put in place due to COVID. Certain mental health barriers such as anxiety might also prevent students from using these services.

The lack of parking permits has been combated by offering these services but it seems that the University is almost forcing students to use these alternatives. As of now the U of I requires first year students to live on campus and oftentimes this requires transportation to and from the campus. Live-in Greek life students are often only offered a meal service Mondays-Fridays and have to supply their own meals on the weekends. For other on-campus students there are meal plans available, (uidaho.edu Residence Halls Dining). However, in order for someone to fulfill three meals a day, 21 meals, they would have to purchase the unlimited plan and this might not be financially feasible for some students.

There is a high need for parking permits and year after year there are students who are struggling to figure out their transportation. They may come into college, their first year, scared to death of how they are going to travel out of town, to the store, or around Moscow. They might not be able to use any of the transit systems available and asking a friend might just be infeasible. With tight academic schedules as well as social schedules it would be nice to be able to buy a parking permit so then they could commute on their time when it is most convenient for them. There is a surplus of parking permits for Staff members and a heavy shortage for students. With a 16:1 ratio of students to staff it is under the University’s best interest to increase the amount of permits allotted to students. Even if they were to take some of the 800 Gold permits and offer them to students it could help mitigate the problem. Or if they were to take some of the day-only parking and make it 24 hour it could give on-campus students a better chance at a parking permit.

Sources:

https://www.uidaho.edu/infrastructure/parking/at-a-glance/future-plans
https://www.uidaho.edu/-/media/UIdaho-Responsive/Files/infrastructure/Parking/future-plans/permit-fee-plan-current.pdf
https://www.uidaho.edu/admissions/why-ui/first-year-profile
https://www.uidaho.edu/dfa/administrative-operations/i-safety/parking-services
https://www.uidaho.edu/about/fast-facts
https://www.uidaho.edu/infrastructure/parking/parking-permits/student-permits/resident-permits
https://www.uidaho.edu/-/media/UIdaho-Responsive/Files/infrastructure/Parking/survey_results/pts_survey_2018_results.pdf?la=en&hash=A8E13E1D66E1D0333A51BB5299836008E31A1A1C