An Easy Solution for

the Issues of
University of New Mexico
Parking

Because it shouldnt be stressful.

Proposal
By: Averie Green

Introduction:
As students, faculty, staff, and the members of the UNM
community make their way to campus every day they have the
constant stress of parking. Where will I park? How much will I
have to pay? Will there even be a space open?
It is common for public places to have inconvenient,
consolidated, or difficult parking but the University of New Mexico
has brought the meaning of these terms to a whole new level.
Students pay hundreds of dollars to park both on and off the
university campus in order to obtain an education that they are
already paying thousands of dollars to receive.
This may seem like a miniscule problem compared to other
issues in our community but if we have the means to fix it, we
wouldnt we? My focus group and I plan to eliminate the vast
majority of the issues at the university with little to no out of
pocket cost. We plan to do this by simply creating more parking.

Problem Description:
Though the issue of parking for those involved at the
university has been going on for decades it doesnt seem to be
getting any better. In fact, it is getting worse. In the past few
years hundreds of parking spaces have been destroyed in order to
build additional on campus student living.
As the number of parking spaces decreased the number of
students enrolled at the university continued to rise. There are a
total of 13,000 parking spaces available for over 50,000 students
attending UNM (Quintana. ABQ Journal).This does not include the
staff and other employees on the university. This statistic alone
represents the severity of the issue.

In addition to the lack of parking available, what is available

is extremely over-priced. It costs students and staff anywhere
from $175 to $500 to obtain a parking pass for the university
depending on how far youre willing to commute to campus. The
vast majority of available spaces are not even on the campus
itself. There are off campus parking lots with busses that shuttle
hundreds of people to campus and back every day. Not only is this
inconvenient but it demands even more money to pay for shuttles
along with the employment of drivers for each shuttle.
If a parking pass is not the expense of your choice on
campus hourly parking is $1 per half hour. This may not seem like
a lot but for a typical student an average class day can be up to 6
hours long. That is up to $12 a day, $60 a week, and as much as
$1,020 a semester. On top of these outrageous expenses up to
50,000 plus parking violation citations are issued each school
year. These citations start at $20 for a first offence and increase
from there.

Step by Step Solution:

Step 1: Purchase Land

In order to provide more parking for the attendees of the
university we need to obtain land. The most important part of this
process is finding a large enough location for a lot in close range
to campus. This may end up being the most challenging aspect of
the project. Open land around the UNM area is scarce but it is not
impossible to acquire. Whether the location is in walking distance
of campus or not makes a huge difference in ultimate cost. If the
lot is close enough to campus for users to walk there will be no
need to purchase busses and hire shuttle drivers.

Step 2: Pave the Lot

After a piece of land is purchased it will need to be paved
and parking stripes will need to be painted. In order to pave an
asphalt lot big enough for a substantial amount of parking a large
amount of funds will be needed. This process will the most
demanding as far as expenses go. After this is accomplished
somewhere around 600-800 more parking spaces will available for
the UNM community use.

Step 3: Establishing Pricing and Regulations

One major component of parking is pricing. In theory, more
students will be willing to purchase a parking pass if they are

lower in cost. This will ultimately increase profits for the

Department and Parking and Transportation at UNM while
decreasing the stress and financial bourdon for students and staff.
Despite the improvement of these parking prices the old rates still
remain. We will need to evaluate old parking pricing and establish
new rates to ultimately increase income.

Step 4: Reduce Assigned Parking

As you walk the UNM campus you will notice a number of
empty spaces. This seems unusual considering the demand. This
is due to the idea of assigned spaces which only one vehicle is
permitted to. This leaves hundreds of spaces empty while
students and staff search to pay for an open space. By reducing
the amount of assigned spaces and leaving more available for
first come first serve use, more people will be able to utilize
parking areas currently available.

Qualifications:
As a UNM student I have encountered the parking
experience for many semesters now and have come to know the
conflict of it all. I have dealt with the issue first hand and know
exactly what we need to do to satisfy the needs of the students
and staff of the University of New Mexico. As a psychology major
am learning and continue to learn how issues like these ultimately
effect ones emotions and academic performance. This knowledge
allows me to explore this problem through different perspectives
in order to make the best of the solution. The other participants
accompanying me in this project will be other UNM students
affected by the stresses of parking at the university as well as
those employed by UNMs Department of Parking and
Transportation.

Cost/Benefit:

The cost of this project seems unobtainable but I assure you

it is not. If even half of the 40,000 students attending the
university purchased the cheapest current parking pass ($175) a
total of at least $3,500,000 would be profited. Another $1,000,000
made due to the 50,000 ($20) parking citations issued. These
yearly funds will support this project financially with no
disadvantages.

Cost of New
University
Parking Lot
Total cost

239,500.00
Service
Land
Paving
Painting

Cost
$16,000
$220,000
$3,500

Thank you for your time and consideration. If you have any
questions please feel free to contact me at averieane@unm.edu.

The website is used to create my multimodal component did

not allow me to save the page without purchasing something so
unfortunately I could not display it here.
This is a link to my multimodal component:
https://infograph.venngage.com/p/164703/parking

Work Cited:
Quintana, Chris. "Parking Problems." Albuquerque Journal. N.p., 28 Mar. 2016.
Web.
https://www.abqjournal.com/747098/unms-parking-problemsgrowing.html
Monteleone, James. "UNM Seeks Solutions to Parking Problems." Albuquerque
Journal. N.p., 25 Aug. 2011. Web.
https://www.abqjournal.com/52116/unm-seeks-solutions-to-parkingproblems.html
Lucero, Marissa. "University of New Mexico Issues 3,776 Parking Citations in 2
Weeks." KRQE News 13. N.p., 28 Aug. 2015. Web.
http://krqe.com/2015/08/28/university-of-new-mexico-issues-3776parking-citations-in-2-weeks/
Website; John Corvino, Joseph Sing, Myranda Parunga, Greg Pena
http://group4unm.weebly.com/statistics.html