Student parking at UNM balances cost and convenience

photo by Jeremy Huggard

The UNM Parking Structure on UNM main campus.

University of New Mexico offers a number of different parking options, but is there one that works best?

All UNM students have different parking needs, but how those needs are best fulfilled can by judged by looking at student finances and schedules.

The following article presents some options students have for parking around UNM’s main Albuquerque campus. By presenting common circumstances that students can face, the possible solutions to their problems may become evident.

The primary options for parking around UNM campus are commercial pay lots, permit spaces, the UNM Parking Structure and parking meters. Each of these is able to meet student needs to varying degrees. None is distinctly better because each offers different advantages.

High Convenience, High Cost

For the UNM student who foremost wants immediate access to main campus, the UNM Parking Structure is ideal, as it sits across from Popejoy Hall. Parking at the structure costs $1.75 per hour, this rate increases annually based on inflation.

The six-story structure has 400 spaces for which availability fluctuates throughout the day as students and UNM staff come and go. The convenience of the structure is offset by its cost, which can add up quickly.

If a someone were to park in the structure every day of a semester for an average of seven hours per day, it would cost about $980. This is obviously not ideal for the frugal student.

Low Cost, Less Convenience

For students seeking more cost-effective parking, another option is parking permits. These can be purchased for either remote or relatively close parking lots around the UNM campus area.

UNM Parking and Transportation Services maintains several parking lots designated for students and staff, but only a few are open to the general UNM population. The lots are convenient in that the permits for them are never oversold, ensuring open spaces.

photo by Jeremy Huggard

A student bus pulls away from the curb at UNM's South Lot.

However, due to the remote locations the lots north and south of campus, it is necessary to ride a bus after parking.

“I do have to leave my house about an hour in advance if I want to get to class on time,” said Dan Martinez, who parks every day at UNM’s South Lot. “During the day you don’t have to wait too long, but in the afternoons, some days you’ll be waiting for like 15 minutes for a bus to come. If it’s really cold out, I tend to wait in my car.”

A UNM park and ride permit currently costs $124 and allows access to a lot for one year, starting in August. If a student buys a permit late in the year or during the spring semester, the permit is pro-rated to reflect the diminished time left to use it.

photos by Jeremy Huggard

Students with UNM parking permits can also use spaces in the A, B and C parking lots on campus as well.

The UNM permits also allow for parking on campus after 3:45 p.m. in designated areas, giving students the opportunity to park on campus in the afternoons and evenings.

There are also parking permits available through the University Church of Christ, located at the corner of University Boulevard and Gold Avenue. This option allows access to a pair of lots that are within walking distance of UNM and feature a total of 75 available spaces.

The University Church of Christ permits cost $60 per semester and are sold two weeks before the beginning of classes on a first come, first served basis.

Moderate Cost, Reasonably Convenient

Some may not like having to ride a bus or leave home so far in advance of their classes. For them, an alternative is the numerous commercial pay lots dotted around the campus area. Most of these are owned by Park It Place, an Albuquerque parking management company.

“We offer convenient locations, clean lots and excellent customer care,” said Neal Greenbaum, Park It Place manager.

photo by Jeremy Huggard

One of the Park It Place pay lots at Yale Boulevard and Silver Avenue.

With 11 lots around the southern and western edges of campus, Park It Place provides hundreds of spaces to the UNM population, with the most popular located on or near Yale Boulevard.

The lots range in price from $2 to $5. Although most Park It Place lots allow paying customers to stay for up to 12 hours, this can also be as short as two hours maximum, depending on surrounding businesses. It’s important to pay attention to posted limits and prices because they are not the same at every lot.

On average, one can expect to pay $3 for 12 hours, which must be paid in cash. There is one lot at the corner of University Boulevard and Copper where payments can be made via credit card, but cash is the norm.

Currently there are no plans to expand the number of credit card pay booths, said Park It Place’s Greenbaum, because they are less mechanically reliable than the cash pay booths.

If a student were to use a Park It Place lot every day of a semester for seven hours per day, the total would be about $200 to $240, depending on which lots were used.

Quick In and Out

For students who aren’t planning to be on campus for very long, there are also public parking meters around all streets directly south of UNM. Owned by the City of Albuquerque, these meters give students the ability to get onto different areas of campus quickly, but offer little time before they must return.

The meters cost $1 per hour, but while some allow for up to two hours in a parking space, others only allow for half that time. This was changed by the city to prevent students from staying parked in front of area businesses for extended amounts of time.

“Something students should realize is, for example take the hour meters on Harvard, you can’t go back and keep feeding the meter in the same spot,” said Dave Petrov, Parking Division manager for the City of Albuquerque. “You need to move your car from there after an hour or it can be ticketed. The businesses around those spaces need turnover for their customers.”

Parking Enforcement Supervisor David Delgado added: “The best advice I can offer is to just pay attention to the signage in the area, to what the say, and you won’t have any problems.”

photo by Jeremy Huggard

A coin meter outside UNM's Communication and Journalism building.

There are also coin meters scattered around UNM campus -- next to Dane Smith Hall, the Communication and Journalism building and in A Permit parking lot across from Johnson Field, for example -- that cost $1.35 to $1.60 per hour. These are administered by the UNM Parking and Transportation Services rather than the city of Albuquerque. However, they only allow students an hour before they expire.

Not Paying for a Space is Risky

One of the biggest concerns for any student is going to be money, and for those who park in any of these places without paying, it can get exponentially more expensive very fast.

The UNM Parking Structure requires passing by a tollbooth on the way in and way out, but the other parking places are basically open. They all use a penalty volcano style of increasing consequences for repeat offenders.

This can mean citations that can potentially graduate to booting ($50 removal fee) or towing of offender’s cars (about $180 towing fee), collection agencies seeking debts and in the case of parking meter tickets, even an arrest warrant (three $40 tickets, vehicle boot, towing, court costs). A few $10 tickets can balloon to hundreds of dollars and hours lost in mending the situation.

Of particular note to students, UNM enforces payment of its own parking citations by blocking further registration abilities until all fees have been paid.

Written April 23, 2009

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