Transportation and Parking |
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September 11, 2012,
Volume 59, No. 03 |
With the beginning of the school year, Penn Transportation and Parking would like to update the Penn Community on important changes to our parking program. These changes are part of a comprehensive plan to provide a range of options to meet the commuting needs of the entire campus community. As part of that effort, our goal was to support Penn’s Climate Action Plan goal of reducing the University’s carbon footprint while at the same time ensuring that those who must drive to campus have a range of options from which to choose.
Recently introduced initiatives such as occasional parking and carpooling greatly reduce the cost of parking for individuals who choose to participate in those programs. Additionally, our vanpooling program has been expanded, there are more car share vehicles on campus and the University has joined with the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission’s Emergency Ride Home Program. We have also added new parking areas on campus including Penn Park and 50 spaces at Domus. Transit commuters are now provided a minimum 5% subsidy off their monthly fares and can now pay for transit station parking using pre-tax pay. All of these options were created with the intent to provide members of the Penn Community with access to a variety of commuting choices to enable them to find the right mix of convenience, flexibility and affordability.
As of September 1, Penn Parking also introduced a new permit parking rate structure. Three locations that have the highest requests for permits are now designated Prime permit locations. These locations are the following garages: Chestnut 34 (formerly garage 37), Penn Museum (formerly garage 7) and Curie Blvd aka garage 44. The FY 13 permit parking rate for these locations has increased to $1,950/year, or $162.50/month. This is approximately $7.80/day. Most other parking locations now have a permit parking rate of $1,913.04/year or $159.42/month. This is approximately $7.65/day. Rates for remote parking locations (Hollenback, formerly lot 29, and River Fields, formerly lot 33) are $1,219.08/year or $101.59/month. This is approximately $4.88/day.
Our fee structure is designed to support our continued campaign of infrastructure improvements and upgrades to the facilities. During the past 12 months, over $2.5 million in improvements have been made to the Penn Parking system. Future improvements include: security upgrades to the Walnut 40 Garage (formerly Garage 40), new lighting in the Graduate Education Garage (formerly garage 28), new waterproofing, access control and revenue management system at the Penn Museum Garage, pay stations in Hollenbeck and River Fields to allow public parking in the evenings and weekends as well as painting, patching and asphalt repairs across all our lots.
Transportation and Parking is happy to work with members of the Penn Community to help them find the commuting options that best suit their needs. You can visit www.upenn.edu/parking or email parking@upenn.edu for information and assistance.
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