Alexandra Lozano
Staff Writer

Finding parking is a constant headache at the University of La Verne. To ease congestion, University officials recently formed a 10 person parking committee, including city and University representatives, to discuss the parking problems and to find a solution.

Complicating the parking issues is pressure from the South Coast Air Quality Management District to increase carpooling, said Mike Nunez, director of campus safety and transportation.

“The need for additional parking is being reviewed by the AQMD,” Nunez said. “They would like a reduction in the number of vehicles that drive to the campus between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m.”

The University is under pressure from the AQMD for apparently being too lenient in its parking restrictions, said Eric Bishop, associate dean of Academic Support and Retention-Matriculation Services.

The parking committee is considering several ways to address the problem including possibly charging faculty or increasing student fees for parking. Students currently pay $20 for annual parking permits.

“The fee would encourage people to find alternative ways to get to campus,” said Phil Hawkey, executive vice president, who organized the parking committee.

Other proposed solutions include building stacked parking here or adding a remote lot at the Fairplex with a shuttle service.

Jaimie Oberbeck, a senior math major, disagrees with these parking committee proposals.

“Charging faculty, I don’t think that would help,” Oberbeck said.

The 10-member parking committee has met only once, on April 5, and is still considering various ideas. Another meeting will be scheduled sometime in the next two or three weeks.

“I just assembled the group to have this conversation and have follow up conversations,” Hawkey said, adding that he would like to have some new plans in place by fall.

“We’re going to be working on this issue for the next month and most of next year,” Hawkey said.

Other ideas on the table include a garage jointly owned by the city and the
University, Nunez said, though he added that finding the land for it would be a challenge. But pressures from the AQMD is forcing the University to consider doing more than just adding additional parking spaces.

“That’s why the city and the University are looking at alternative such as Metro, van pooling, and carpooling to reduce the number of parking spaces in the city and the number of vehicles that will be driving to the University,” Nunez said.

Committee member Jim Brooks said he believes increasing carpooling will be the solution.

Brooks noted that carpooling also includes walking, biking and driving electric vehicles.

“Theoretically it would work, but people’s schedules are so different,” Oberbeck said.

“There’s still several options available that are being discussed at this time,” Brooks said.

Alexandra Lozano can be reached at himelozano@juno.com.