During a brief meeting held just before Thanksgiving break, the committee agreed on possibly extending the operating hours of two major pay parking lots on campus.
Under the proposed plan, the Morehead and Swain lots, both of which are designated as pay operations visitor lots on campus, would extend their hours from 5 p.m. to midnight Monday through Thursday, from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and from 3 p.m. to 2 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Faculty and staff with daytime permits for those two lots still can park there after 5 p.m. and on weekends, the proposal states. Graduate students who teach in the lots' adjacent buildings would have to apply for credentials to park in those lots at no charge. Both lots charge $1 an hour for parking, but ACT's proposal asks that faculty, staff and students who present their UNC ONE Cards while exiting the two lots pay only 75 cents an hour.
In addition, the NG3 lot, which serves the area near Steele Building and Caldwell Hall, would be reserved as a North Campus lot for faculty and staff after 5 p.m.
Derek Poarch, ACT chairman and director of the Department of Public Safety, said the plan's accomplishments are two-fold. First, extending the hours of the pay lots captures revenue from people who use the lots for free to go to Franklin Street. Second, it also helps faculty and teaching assistants who must return to campus at night and might compete for that parking.
"This takes care of all the issues that seemed to be most pressing with what we do with our night parking," Poarch said. "There is no other proposal coming from (DPS) regarding night parking as far as we're concerned."
The proposal was only one of two items on ACT's agenda Wednesday. In other committee developments, the group decided not to take action regarding funding for Chapel Hill Transit services.
UNC helps fund the system through student fees, the department transit tax and the school's parking system. Committee members discussed Nov. 6 several alternatives for funding transit, such as shifting some of the expense to UNC employers or to parking fine revenue. But by Wednesday, the group's consensus was to not take any action.
ACT will hold its last meeting of the semester Dec. 11, when, Poarch said, the committee will begin a draft proposal, with the help of Raleigh-based transportation consultants Kimley-Horn and Associates, that encompasses the group's semester of work. Officials have said they expect ACT to present a proposal to the UNC Board of Trustees by January.
