Parking Registration on Schedule

The trustees voted at Thursday's BOT meeting to send the parking proposal back to administrators to create a new version without a night parking permit system.

Carolyn Elfland, associate vice chancellor for campus services, said after the meeting that the BOT's decision could delay parking registration for the fall 2002 semester and the Department of Public Safety's negotiations for a bus contract with the transit authority.

But Cheryl Stout, assistant director of parking services, said parking registration is still planned to begin April 8 as originally scheduled.

"We're still planning, and we're still discussing, but we're shooting for the eighth," she said. "We're going to try."

Stout also said the revision should not affect the allocation process for day parking permits or the recommended increases in prices for day permits.

In the administration's original proposal, the recommended permit prices increased by about 20 percent for most parking lots but by as much as 40 percent for others.

But Stout said she does not expect these prices to change in the administration's revised plan.

"To my knowledge, (the recommended parking permit prices) won't be raised more than proposed in the original ordinance," she said.

Stout also said the BOT's decision should not change plans from the original proposal to gate four parking lots: 440 W. Franklin St. (N1); Porthole and Morehead (N2); Cobb, Connor and Paul Green Theatre (N4); and Public Safety (S1).

"We're not going to go back and say, 'Oh, let's gate 10 more lots,'" she said.

Although Elfland said DPS's negotiations for a transit contract might be put on hold due to the BOT's decision, Chapel Hill Transportation Director Mary Lou Kuschatka said discussions are continuing on schedule.

"We're currently in our normal cycle in developing a budget and what transit service we will provide next year," she said.

Officials from UNC and the transit authority negotiate a contract annually for a joint bus service.

This year's contract includes the new fare-free busing plan.

UNC students voted for the joint busing initiative in last year's student elections, and the program went into effect in January.

Kuschatka said that in addition to the normal transit contract negotiations, she was in discussions with University officials about the addition of a shuttle service to campus parking lots under the rejected night parking plan.

She said the discussions about the additional shuttle service to the parking lots did not advance far enough to cause delays in the transit contracting process.

"We never had to get a proposal for a shuttle service," she said. "We never got far enough in the planning, at least on this end of the deal."

But Kuschatka said that if the BOT decides to reinitiate the night parking permit system, such a decision could stall the transit contracting process.

"We would be further along in our budgetary discussions by that point," she said. "So it could delay the contract if that happened."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.