Parking on the Pullman Campus Remains Exorbitant

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The cost of parking on the Pullman Campus remains absurdly high, particularly for faculty and staff located in the central part of campus where parking is most expensive and in the highest demand.

This issue comes up almost annually and administration always responds that the legislature requires that parking be self-supporting and that state dollars cannot be used for parking. While true, that doesn’t actually address the issue.

The reality is that parking in Pullman is considerably more expensive than other public universities in Washington, who presumably suffer from the same limitations imposed by the legislature — the legislative limitation isn’t the problem. The only Washington public university where parking is more expensive than WSU Pullman is UW, but as we know the vast majority of UW faculty, staff, and students do not commute to campus by car, they commute by public transit (only 5% of UW Seattle students, faculty, & staff commute by car). Here in Pullman, on the other hand, almost everyone commutes by car making the issue far more acute.

I’ve included below a survey of where universities in the area stand in terms of the most expensive parking permit available. Are you can see, Pullman is inexplicably at the upper end of the cost amongst *both* the rural and urban universities and the only rural university in the top 4, while several urban universities (WWU, Gonzaga, PLU, are actually at the bottom). Even parking here in town at the University of Idaho is considerably cheaper (and the Idaho legislature isn’t providing funding for parking either, yet somehow UofI is able to do what we’re not and keep parking costs reasonable).

Another issue that plays into this is the high cost of daily permits on the Pullman campus. The most expensive daily permit available in Pullman (daily green) is $9.20 plus tax, which is considerably more expensive than all of the other universities in the state except for UW Seattle, where a daily permit is $9.46 (including tax). So in essence, daily permits in Pullman are priced at Seattle rates, whereas daily permits at other rural Washington universities are priced considerably lower. Across town at UofI, for example, the most expensive daily permit is $4, less than half of the cost on the Pullman campus.

UW Seattle $2,270/year — actively discourages commuting by car.
UW Tacoma $1,000/year — actively discourages commuting by car.
WSU Pullman $892/year
WSU Spokane $684/year
UW Bothell $675/year
EWU $459/year
UIdaho Moscow $435/year
WWU $357/year
WSU Vancouver $307/year
CWU $286/year
WSU Everett $150/year
Gonzaga $125/year
WSU Tricities Free for faculty/staff ($65/semester for students)
PLU Free

In terms of addressing this, there are a couple of things that administration can do:

Consider going to a structure where employees pay less than students or have access to better parking for the same price. Most area universities provide employees better parking than students for the same price students pay (EWU, CWU, WWU, Gonzaga, UofI, and WSU Tricities as examples). Remember, the university will get more productivity from its employees if it’s easier for them to get to campus. There’s a huge cost to the university of faculty who choose to only come to campus 2-3 days a week simply because the parking situation is too expensive.

Another option is to shift to staggered parking schedules. Several Washington universities sell annual permits that are valid on staggered schedules (for example, UWT sells permits at a 45% discount that are good only on M/W/F or T/Th. That doesn’t address the productivity problem, but it does address the cost problem and could actually be a parking revenue raiser as additional permits could be sold. For example, at UWT if employee A buys a MWF permit and employee B buys a T/Th permit, the total paid by both employees for the five days is actually 10% more than the price of a five day permit.

Over the long term, administration needs to focus on dedensifying the Pullman campus. Pullman is a rural campus built like an urban one. The bulk of academic buildings are built on the west side of Stadium Way, but the bulk of the parking is on the east side of Stadium. Academic buildings could be built further down Grimes with bus access added along Grimes to allow smooth movement of students to that part of campus and, most importantly, access to the underutilized yellow and red parking areas in that part of campus (and the vacant land that would allow the construction of more parking).

~Anonymous Faculty Member

Response

Thank you for bringing this concern forward. Although this has been brought up in the past, the new data on cost comparison is interesting and helpful. We will look into the matter further. Budgets for the WSU 2022 (PDF) and University of Idaho 2020 parking offices (PDF) are linked for comparison.

It may be worth noting that WSU provides free bus services that include transport to and from lower cost parking lots, and the parking office has noted that there are two free Park and Ride lots with bus service located at the north end of campus (see map here).

~Faculty Senate Executive Officers

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