Virtual Parking Passes: Opportunities for a Sustainable Future

The U is getting rid of the old-fashioned hangtag permit
system, but will it seize opportunities to reduce car commuting?

The University of Utah will be moving to a virtual parking pass system for the Fall semester.  This is great news because it opens up a world of opportunities for reducing car trips to campus, including during poor air quality periods.

With the new system, your license plate serves as your permit.  Such an approach will certainly be more convenient, although commuter services also claims that amongst the benefits of doing this is a savings of 650 pounds of paper and 450 pounds of plastic.

That's nice, but there are more significant opportunities.  As we have discussed previously (see Setback for Sustainability at the U), the U essentially has "all or nothing" parking permits.  You pay $348/year (~$1.50/day assuming 230 work days) for an A "permit" if you are faculty or staff.  Students can get similar permits to park in E or U spaces.  Although U faculty, staff, and students get a free pass to ride transit, once someone has purchased a parking pass, there is no financial incentive other than the cost of gas to encourage people to take transit.

With a virtual system, however, commuter services could do the following:

• Create a system where instead of purchasing an annual permit, you pay by the day (say $2/day).  Every time they scan your plate, your credit card is charged.  You just sign up at the beginning of the semester.  This incentivizes multimode commuting to campus.  Such a system has worked at other universities.  

• Add a surcharge for parking on campus on yellow or red burn days.  On these days, if you park on campus, it costs an extra $2.  Exceptions could be made for low or no tail-pipe emission vehicles and individuals who need to drive for medical reasons.  Perhaps something could be done for carpoolers, but that might be more difficult to enforce, although carpooling would be partly incentivized since it would be cheaper to park one car on campus than two or three.

The U talks a good game about sustainability, but we need to move away from minor improvements such as saving 650 pounds of paper a year.  In terms of our local environment and quality of life, pollution is probably everyone's biggest concern and vehicles are a major source of that pollution.  Let's pursue opportunities and policies that can make a more significant difference.