According to Student Union President Ricky Rosen '14, the issue of parking availability on campus is a growing concern for students and other members of the Brandeis community.

 In a Senate meeting earlier this month, he reported that Public Safety issued between 75 and 100 tickets and towed about 10 cars in North Quad in one crackdown earlier this year.

In an interview with the Justice, Rosen said he plans to evaluate the University's parking system and find ways for it to "better suit student needs." So far, he has formed a "working group of Student Union members" who will draft and send out a survey to gauge student opinions on the issue.

Rosen said that the number of people in need of parking permits has consistently risen over the past few years.

"Years ago, it used to be that every single student at Brandeis could park," he said. "Now it's just juniors and seniors that can park."

Part of the problem is also a large number of unregistered parkers.

"[Director of Public Safety] Ed Callahan estimated that 10 percent of the parkers on campus are unregistered, and those are the majority of people who are being ticketed," Rosen explained. "So part of the solution from a Union perspective is to educate people on how to apply for a pass, and the consequences of not applying for a pass." Callahan was unavailable for comment.

Still, Rosen acknowledged that the number of limited parking spots on campus is an issue in and of itself. In 2011, the University restricted undergraduate parking permit registration to only juniors and seniors. According to Callahan in a Febuary 2012 Justice article, the University issued 3,450 parking permits, exceeding the 2,299 parking spots on campus.

Rosen said that he has met with Callahan, Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel and Senior Vice President for Administration Mark Collins to discuss both short and long-term solutions.

More immediate solutions included acquiring an off-campus lot from which students could be shuttled to campus, further limiting parking access to only seniors or clearing nearby land to build another campus lot.

However, those options are not viable at this point, according to Rosen, as there is not enough space in Waltham to provide more off or on-campus parking and that further limiting parking "would not be in the best interests of students."

Rosen said that after reviewing the options, they decided that the University will have to invest in a parking garage, but acknowledged that this will be a long-term project.

There are several factors and consequences to consider, such as the temporary loss of some parking areas during the construction period and an increase in parking registration fees.
"Instead of students paying $120 a year, it might be five, 10 times that," said Rosen. "We don't know."

According to a Feb. 2012 email to the Justice from Callahan, the University had looked into building a parking garage about five years earlier and had found the cost to be about $18 thousand to $29 thousand per space.

For now, Rosen said he will begin the process by gathering opinions and researching similar colleges and universities' parking systems.

"This is something that within the next decade, we're hoping students, trustees and administrators are going to put at the top of their agenda," Rosen said.

-Tate Herbert contributed reporting