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University Daily Kansan
Campus
Wednesday, August 20, 1986
Quickest and fittest survive battle to park
By Lynn Maree Ross Special to the Kansas
Hunting season begins today.
Basketball season begins today.
The license is yellow and white
costs $3 a year; the prey is a parking
space at the University of Kansas.
On the main campus, nearly 5,000 hunters have only 2,951 spaces to choose from. However, this may change in the near future.
Donna Hultine, assistant director for parking services, said that last February they hired Barton-Aschman Associates, Evanston, Ill., to study the campus parking situation.
Jean Keneipp, senior vice president of the company, said the company would study the University's present and future parking needs.
she said.
"The result will be a program that will keep pace with the University."
The information for the study came from two sources: campus statistics and student and faculty surveys.
The University supplied Keneipe with information about the number of students, faculty and staff on campus each day; the number of people using each building; and the number of cars on campus during peak hours.
"The problem we see with the yellow zones is they're not where people want to park." Hultine said.
For example, the most congested yellow-zone parking is by Green Hall. Meanwhile, the yellow zone west of Memorial Stadium is rarely full, she said.
law school.
Kevin Campbell, Lawrence third-year-law student, said that two-thirds of the law students had to park at least a half mile away from the
The best bet is to get to school earl. Campbell said that he usually found a place to park because he was
'The problem we see with the yellow zones is they're not where people want to park.'
- Donna Hultine assistant director, parking services
at school first thing in the morning. "If you're there after 8:30 you might as well forget it," he said.
at school first thing in the morning.
However, some students don't get to school early. When they do get to campus, they sit in their cars, hunched over the steering wheel. They peer right and left, like vultures, waiting for someone to leave the parking lot.
Sometimes the students sit in their cars with the engines turned off. But as any hunter knows, being prepared is the best guarantee of bagging the prey. Some students, aware of this, sit in their cars with the engines turned on.
A few seconds can be the difference between getting a parking place and being late to class.
as class time approaches, some students tempt fate and park in a red zone.
Parking services issued about 7,000 tickets last year to people with parking permits who had parked in the
wrong zone.
The worst time to find a parking place is at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. According to the University, that's when the most students are on campus, Keneipp said.
Knowing how many students are on campus during peak hours is essential to the study, he said. So the company hired a plane and took an aerial photograph of the University at about 10 a.m. on a Wednesday a few weeks before spring finals.
In addition, the company sent surveys to faculty members. A student survey appeared in the April 25 edition of the Daily Kansan.
To encourage students to respond, the company offered three cash prizes. Hultine said the prizes were awarded in May to Kent Smith, Victor sophomore, $100; Evan Ice,
Newton senior, $50; and Dennis Kuyper, Kansas City, Kan., senior,
$25.
Even though the company offered prizes, Kneipp said, less than 50 percent of the students responded. About 50 percent of the faculty responded.
The company is still compiling the information. But sometime in late November or early December it will present its findings to the University and recommend changes, Keneipp said.
Those recommendations could include ways to finance major changes in parking such as parking garages.
Until then, it's open season on parking spaces.
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