STARKVILLE – Mississippi State University announced dramatic changes to campus parking this summer. Since then, Executive Director of Transportation Jeremiah Dumas said the response has been “brutal,” with angry emails, phone calls and even requests for his termination. But after classes started in August, Dumas said positive feedback began rolling in.
So, how does the new parking plan differ from last year’s? What is the tiered pricing system? Why change it at all?
How does the new system differ from previous years?
In previous years, MSU parking included broader north, east, south and west zones across campus with multiple parking lots per zone. Students could purchase a permit for commuter east, for example, and have multiple parking lots within that zone to choose from. Each lot was reserved for commuters, staff or residents, with little overlap.
Under the new parking plan, there are 13 smaller zones labeled A through M, and each lot in that zone is assigned a number. Commuting students, residents and staff are allowed to purchase only one permit, and each permit is tied to a specific parking lot.
The changes to parking were rolled out in phases. Phase 1, rolled out in July, was to sell permits in each zone at a ratio of one permit per space to collect data on how many staff, residents and commuters were using each lot. Dumas said this informed how many permit holders would leave and return throughout the day.
Phase 2 was inviting additional people from the waitlist into zones with larger amounts of commuters and staff, which see higher turnover. Since the first day of school, about 3,000 permits have been issued on top of the 1:1 ratio.
Phase 3 began Aug. 25 and will continue throughout the academic year. This phase involves doing daily parking lot counts to establish weekly averages of how many open spaces there typically are in each parking lot. As transportation employees see spots consistently available in these lots, they’ll continue to move people off the waitlist.
Dumas said six waitlists have since been emptied and more are emptied every day.
Until last week, students who did not have a permit could park for free from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Mississippi Horse Park and take a bus to Montgomery Hall. Dumas said since more zones have opened up on campus for students, and only about 25 students were using the lot each day, parking at the facility has been closed.
Students and visitors also have the option to pay hourly to park in ParkMobile spots across campus, or park for up to 25 hours in the Old Main parking garage or at the North Parking Garage.
How much does parking cost?
Permits were sold on a tiered system, with the most convenient and desirable spots at the heart of campus costing $375 for residents and $275 for commuters. Commuter parking goes all the way to tier four, which is on the outskirts of campus, and costs $100, while resident parking goes to tier three at $150.
Staff pay a flat fee of $200 for non-gated parking.
Gated parking, which is primarily reserved for staff, costs $565 for a permit, though there is one gated lot available to staff and students.
Why was it changed?
MSU’s previous parking plan was in place for more than a decade. Dumas said as the school’s population has continued to grow and its infrastructure has changed, parking has stayed the same.
“It created a lot of traffic issues because people would go to one lot that they thought was open and there wouldn’t be spaces in it, so then they’d have to move around campus, looking for open spaces,” Dumas said. “… Our goal was to eliminate that traffic, because there’s more pedestrians and bikes and scooters on campus that create safety issues. Then we also wanted to make it more convenient for those who had a permit, so that when they went to a lot or a zone, there were actually spaces in that lot that didn’t require them to move around.”
Plans to modernize the parking system have been ongoing for years, Dumas said. One example of this was moving from physical parking decals on vehicles to digital permits in 2022. MSU partnered with national firm Walker Consultants to begin the master plan for the new parking system last fall.
But this summer’s changes brought harsh criticism, at first.
“People hate parking, but no one wants it to change. So it’s hard to deal with,” Dumas said. “I had multiple surveys out against my parking organization. I had surveys out to terminate me – social media doing what it does. But thankfully since school has started … people have been more open to suggesting the fact that things are much better, and we see it.”
Dumas has seen “significant” change since the start of the school year. There has been a 1.7% decrease in citations written two weeks after the start of school, compared to last year.
“Contrary to people’s thoughts, we don’t live and die off citations, and it’s not a money grab,” Dumas said. “We actually want less citations. … I think that’s the biggest sign that the system is working.”
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