Issue date: 11/12/08 Section: News

Senior corporate communications major Dustin Culp explains his views on some parking issues around campus during Tuesday afternoon's parking forum in the Buzzard Auditorium. (Erin Matheny / The Daily Eastern News)

Ten students, faculty and staff gathered Tuesday for the second forum on proposed parking changes to campus.

Those changes, which university president Bill Perry outlined in an Oct. 30 campus-wide e-mail, included increasing parking fees.

Parking permits for upperclassmen, faculty and staff would increase incrementally from $50 to $100 over the next four academic years.

"That's still very cheap," said Kevin Staneart, a student who attended the forum. "As a 17- or 18 year-old in high school, you're going to pay $100 a year."

The prices for underclassmen parking will increase from $150 to $200, while administration parking fees will rise from $125 to $250 over the next four years.

Dustin Culp, a senior corporate communications major, said those increases are only fair if the university adds more parking.

"One of the reasons I didn't buy a parking permit until (my senior year) is because there aren't enough spots," Culp said. "It's kind of hard for students to pay up the money if they're not guaranteed a spot."

But finding room for more parking is difficult, said forum moderator Patricia Poulter.

Poulter said state law forbids the university from paying more than the appraised value for any new property.

She said the university wants to preserve its landscape.

"We've got to keep green space," Poulter said. "We've got to keep (the university) active and safe."

The proposed actions also call for developing special-event parking policies.

Eastern needs such a policy, said Robert Bates, the chair of the health studies department. He said parking for Lantz Arena athletic events is disorganized.

"There are buses coming in, parents are coming in, it's just chaos," Bates said. "It's very bad public relations."

The revised parking plans also suggest more walking and biking around campus.

"We need to change the culture of getting in your car … all the time," Poulter said.

She said Eastern has a compact campus.

To encourage biking, the university is considering lending bikes to students - a practice Poulter said is already underway at some universities.

But Staneart said that could be expensive.

"The people I know who have bikes, their bikes get damaged," Staneart said. "It would cost more to repair all the bikes constantly."

People still can send comments about the proposed parking changes to univplan@eiu.edu.

Joe Astrouski can be reached at 581-7942 or at jmastrouski@eiu.edu.

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