Texas Tech Parking Services Building located at 2913 Fourth St, Lubbock, TX. (Avery Dishaw/The Hub@TTU)
While on-campus parking may be frustrating for some, Texas Tech Transportation and Parking Services representatives said parking is strategically set up with one priority in mind: student’s needs and wants.
Brian Brand, associate managing director for Texas Tech Transportation and Parking Services, said Tech’s parking system was designed to provide a desirable service for consumers by providing them with a good product at a good price.
“We obviously wanted to have a very good product,” Brand said. “But one of our goals was to keep that product at a reasonable rate for students, and so that has driven a lot of our decisions on parking.”
Kennedy Young, a junior journalism major at Texas Tech from San Antonio, said she does not own a parking pass simply because it is too expensive.
“I do not have a pass simply because my parents would make me pay for it,” Young said. “I don’t have the funds to do so since I already pay for my rent and utilities.”
Despite student’s complaints, Brand said commuter parking was created based on what students value, such as proximity, price, and demand.
“One of the reasons for our commuter parking to be multi-tiered instead of just like a commuter parking permit for any commuter area is that we wanted people to have choices as to what they choose as a value,” Brand said.
Young said the parking set-up on-campus is “extremely unfair”, and that it is hard to go to class when she cannot afford to get there.
“Why should we have to pay to get to class,” Young said. “It makes it extremely, to be honest, unmotivating at least for me and I know for a couple of other students that I’ve personally talked to, to go to class when it’s hard to get there.”
Texas Tech’s most popular commuter parking lot, Commuter North. (Avery Dishaw/The Hub@TTU)
Brand said Parking Services hear students complaining regularly about disliking the pay-to-park concept because they already pay so much to attend Tech.
“The students that say, you know we hear it all the time, ‘I’m paying so much to go to this school, why do I have to pay to park?’,” Brand said. “Well, we would rather that be a choice, not a mandate.”
Brandon Richard, Media and Relations coordinator for Texas Tech Transportation and Parking Services, said paying for parking further away can be just as beneficial as paying for closer parking because students can use the Texas Tech bus services.
“If you know you always park far away, then it’s fair to pay a little less than everyone else, and plus that’s when you utilize our busses,” Richard said. “You maybe park further away, you get to pay less, but you get to be dropped off right near the front door of the building.”
Young said she thinks parking should be “first come first serve” apart from dorm resident parking.
“Whoever gets the spot first, should have the spot,” Young said. “I don’t anything should have to be paid for unless you’re a resident at a dorm.”
Brand said the issue with ‘first come first serve parking’ is that some Universities only sell student parking permits for student lots, which he refers to as a “hunting license” because students must hunt for a parking space.
“It is really frustrating because what they end up doing is going to a lot that they think they want to park in that’s close and they circle the lot looking for a space and there is none available,” Brand said. “It really discourages students when they think they can park somewhere, and then they can’t park there.”
Richard said hunting for spaces is why Tech set up their parking based on student’s preferences.
“If everyone had a student permit and you always get stuck parking really far away, you’re paying the exact same price as your colleague that’s parking front row cause they got there 5 hours early,” Richard said. “So, you’re paying the same price but never parking even near, remotely as close as them, so, it is cool that it’s kinda broken up, not just for time and efficiency purposes.”
Brand said that Parking Services try to keep “students in mind” when they are planning.
“I know students don’t really, don’t think about that,” Brand said. “Our goals for everything we do are always to try to be the best we can for the students.”
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