Despite assurances that the Parking and Transportation Services Department takes every precaution to ensure a fair parking situation on campus, official numbers show that the department oversells permits for a number of UNM parking lots.
Clovis Acosta, director of the department, said that while parking at UNM has always been tight, officials physically count the number of parking spots needed in a given semester.
"However, we take into consideration the amount of time students spend in the lots and if that lot is used at night, we may increase the number of permits a little," Acosta said.
Craig Pacheco, a senior majoring in Psychology, disagreed, noting what he claims are the unethical practices of overselling the lots across campus in favor of profit as an example of the disservice with which the department treats its customers.
"Too many students are left looking for alternative parking after realizing there are no spots in the lot they paid for," Pacheco said. "There is something wrong here."
G Lot, which has 1,899 spaces available, had 2,650 permits sold for it at the end of the Fall 2002 semester, making it oversold by 40 percent.
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South Lot, which has 2,022 available spaces, had 4,438 permits sold, making it oversold by 119 percent. That number includes the 700 South Lot permits sold to TVI students.
G and South Lots are two of the most heavily used student parking lots on campus.
Josh Kavanagh, associate director of the Parking and Transportation Services Department, defended these numbers by stating that student parking habits vary from faculty and staff and that not all students with permits are on campus at any given time.
"Variations in class schedules, absenteeism, work and other factors contribute to a predictable parking pattern," Kavanagh said.
He added that the department uses industry standard ratios to determine how many permit-holders a parking lot can serve.
When irregular attendance patterns, high violation rates or any other anomaly occurs to disrupt the parking system, it posts officers at the affected lots to guide permit-holders to alternate locations.
Kavanagh attributed students lack of adequate parking to illegal parking and atypical parking patterns, surges in students coming to campus during peak times such as the first weeks of school and during finals.
His advice for anyone who is unable to find parking during these vital times is to fully research all the locations where their permit is valid -- usually a spot is somewhere on campus for them.
He added, though, that if the department were to sell exactly one permit for every available space, the department would not be able to pay its bills.
Kavanagh said that while department officials want people to have somewhere to park, it would be counter productive to have empty spots in the lots.
Students say that purchasing a permit that does not guarantee the buyer a parking spot is wrong.
"UNM is notorious for its bad parking situation," Pacheco said. "The amount of money students spend on parking tickets and the negative effects that the lack of parking is having on student's education are terrible."
Acosta said the department, which is a completely self-supporting entity with no outside funding, collects more than $2 million in annual revenue from permit sales and parking tickets -- making up the bulk of the department's operating budget.
He named upkeep and improvement of the hundreds of thousands of square feet of parking space across campus, the maintenance of new environmentally conscious compressed natural gas shuttles and the hiring of an independent security force that patrols the lots as examples of the department putting that revenue back into the community.
"A nice, clean, attractive campus is a priority to us," Acosta said. "We work real hard to improve our service to the UNM community. That money helps us keep abreast of all the technological advances available and keep our University as cutting edge as possible."
Acosta also noted the online capabilities of the department, which are used for ticket appeals and permit purchases as ways that the department is improving its services on campus.
"We are providing better services on campus than we ever have before," Acosta said. "We have every reason to expect that we will continue that trend."
Kavanagh noted the recent implementation of the old Bob Turner Ford parking lot as another parking option and the building of the new Cornell garage, which is being built to provide a centralized parking location for campus visitors and Popejoy Hall patrons, as an attempt to ease the parking burden on campus.
The garage, which will primarily be used for visitor parking, will have a ripple effect, easing the parking tension everywhere on campus, Kavanagh said.
He added that the garage, which is being funded through a bond, will be entirely self-sufficient upon completion. It will be managed by the Parking and Transportation Services Department.
Jennifer Gonzales, a junior majoring in business, says this is yet another slap in the face of UNM students, adding that she believes the new garage will be of little or no benefit to students.
"After repeated complaints from students, there is finally a new garage being built, one that will be a luxury for the person that visits campus once a week," Gonzales said. "Those of us who are here every day will be left in the cold."
More parking is always good, regardless of who parks there, Kavanagh said. However, he added, it won't be to the exclusion of faculty, staff or students.
"We're not out to get students," Acosta agreed. "We're here to help them in any way possible. Parking is never an easy situation. We're in this together."
