Parking your vehicle near the University of Wisconsin campus is not an easy task. You are tired, maybe even hungover. You may be late and the rain, snow, hail or sleet is coming down. You finally arrive at an uncovered parking lot that is far away from your apartment or dorm. If you are lucky enough to park on the street near your building, you may be running outside every hour and 58 minutes to move your vehicle from the designated two-hour parking spot. However, you are most likely paying an obscene amount to store your car at the place you live.
The parking situation where most students reside is difficult. There are many students with many cars and many non-students in downtown Madison, and yet few places to park. The combination allows for apartments to charge high prices to their residents. For instance, in the area known as the “Sophomore Slums” (near Spring Street), there are apartment complexes such as Humbucker Apartments, Randall Station and Dayton Orchard which provide parking for their renters. However, the prices range from around $130 per month to $185 per month. The price, although comparable to other apartments, is rather high when you add it to rent, utilities and growing tuition debt.
Then there’s the alternative — you can just live off campus and commute. This method also has its drawbacks. Obtaining a campus-parking permit is neither cheap nor convenient. To be eligible to get a parking permit you must either be commuting from outside of Madison (more than one mile from the city transit system), be a working student who uses their vehicle at least three times per week for employment or be a student with special circumstances.
After approval, you select one of the six lots, where you will park your vehicle and walk to class. The prices for the 2014-2015 school year range from $838 to $1,199 annually. If you are taking the cheapest lot and you are car-pooling, the price doesn’t seem as monumental. However, if you are commuter student, who’s to say that you are not paying the UW permit fee in addition to the aforementioned parking fee at your place of residence?
If you live on a street such as Marshall Court in the Village of Shorewood Hills (like me), you would be doing just that. The Village is almost entirely made up of two-hour street parking. If you are a resident of the Village you may obtain a free annual parking permit that allows you to surpass the two-hour limit within 100 yards of your residents (awesome!). That is of course, unless you live on certain streets within the complex (not awesome!). Marshall Court is a street inside the Village that has an apartment complex, Arbor Crossing and condominiums such as Shackelton Square. Any resident of these complexes is not allowed to obtain a parking permit. Although parking is available at a monthly fee to both locations, it is unfair that residents in those locations do not receive the same privileges as the rest of the Village.
For all of the above reasons, the parking situation in and around campus is less than pleasant. What are the solutions? Obviously if you live on a street such as mine, street parking for more than two hours is not an option. The “Sophomore Slums” also has restricted street parking. The city of Madison’s parking utility website lists specific addresses where Madison residential parking permits are not available, permits which would allow you to surpass the two-hour parking limit. The addresses include buildings on Spring Street, North Mills and Randall. The addresses are ineligible because of “restrictions placed on the conditional use approvals of the buildings.”
If parking is expensive and the only street parking available is for a maximum of two hours, what are your other options? Although I advocate using the public transportation system as much as possible, owning a car can be a necessary evil. We are students with jobs, families and off-campus obligations. Unfortunately, taking a bus to a city such as Stoughton or biking to Sun Prairie is not really an option. If you wish to live near UW campus with a car, be prepared to dodge parking enforcement or fill out paperwork for another student loan to cover it.
Mackenzie Krumme ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in international studies and intending to major in journalism.
