Parking fees at UCLA will increase starting next January as UCLA’s transportation department confronts rising costs.
The yellow parking plan, geared toward commuters, and the blue plan, for on-campus residents and faculty who need high levels of mobility, will both increase $9 per quarter ““ a total increase of $27 for the year.
Students and staff have not seen the last of fee increases, though.
The department expects to raise fees a few dollars every year for the next 10 years, as opposed to a large-scale increase at once, to allow for a gradual change to ease students and staff into the changes, said Lisa Koerbling, director of parking and finance for UCLA Transportation.
Koerbling attributed the fee increases to several factors, including operation costs and increases in departmental contributions to the retirement system on behalf of Transportation employees.
UCLA Transportation officials also anticipate spending $8.1 million in 2012-2013 to subsidize alternative transportation such as the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus and L.A. Metro in efforts to reduce traffic and pollution near campus.
“We’re all about access and mobility, but parking happens to be a big part of what we do as well,” Koerbling said.
As for the parking structures themselves, the fee increase will help fund seismic retrofitting of parking structures across campus to meet new safety regulations. The funds will also go toward updating pay station infrastructure at certain parking structures, including a pay-on-exit pay station at the Jules Stein parking lot in South Campus.
The seismic retrofitting of Parking Structures 2, 3 and 9 is expected to cost about $3.6 million over the next three years. UCLA Transportation will take on minor debt to complete the seismic renovations, Koerbling said.
The department is currently using $1.7 million in reserve funds to finance the renovations. The use of the reserve minimizes the amount of fee increases, Koerbling said.
The department will use less than 10 percent of its total reserve funds to complete the renovations, she said.
Some students, such as Jonas White, a first-year graduate student at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, say they will still purchase a parking pass next year despite the higher cost.
White said he had not heard about the increase. But he said it won’t make much of a difference to him because he needs a car on campus.
“It might affect me if I was an undergraduate and was here for more than two years, but it won’t make much of a difference since parking is near $70 (per month) anyway,” White said.
Nick Valentini, a first-year economics student, bought a parking pass because he has music lessons off-campus. He said that most students will just have to weather the fee increases to get to off-campus internships and activities.
“It’s just frustrating because they’re raising the prices on everything,” Valentini said.
Koerbling said the department is doing everything in its power to keep fee increases low, but the measures are necessary.
“We skipped some (increases) in the past because staff was on furlough and students were, and still are, getting fee increases, but we knew we couldn’t keep that up forever,” Koerbling said.
With contributing reports from Alessandra Daskalakis, Bruin reporter.