Park-O-Nomics 101

Faced with the recent Blue Zone debacle, Duke Parking and Transportation officials have attempted to appease students with stopgap measures that fail to address larger-scale problems with the Duke transit network and abandon the organization’s key objectives.

Take, for instance, the mismatch between its current construction projects and long-term goals. The phrases “sustainable campus” and “seven-story, 2,320-space parking deck” make for a strange pair, yet both describe initiatives spearheaded by Duke officials. On one hand, the University has invested substantial funds in hopes of making itself carbon-neutral in eight years through carpool programs, free public transportation passes, bicycle racks and the like. On the other, the Board of Trustees approved a $53 million structure to be built at the edge of campus far from where many of the 2,200 Duke community members currently on the waitlist for a parking pass actually work. While these two projects so antithetical to each other are not competing for funds in a zero-sum game— Duke Parking and Transportation is self-sustaining, a June 2015 Chronicle article reports—the garage construction suggests the administration is focusing less on sustainability than advertisements on campus buses would lead us to believe.

Next, let’s examine the contrast between long- and short-term goals with regard to a more timely issue. Parking spaces in the primary undergraduate parking lot have become scarcer than student group demands fulfilled by the administration, and, according to posts in the Fix My Campus Facebook group, the official response has been to remind commuters that a gravel lot exists at the far end of Blue Zone. In addition to assuming we lack the creativity to find parking spots not paved with asphalt and demarcated with white paint—something I highly doubt considering just how closely the arrangement of cars in Lot #1 at 10 a.m. resembles the 21-plus line for Saturday night Shooters—DPT fails to address an entire half of the supply-and-demand equation. By attempting to placate disgruntled drivers with “more” spots and more lenient enforcement of regulations, thus increasing supply, Parking and Transportation officials have forgotten that they can influence the number of people competing for space in the Blue Zone, Bryan Center parking deck and (let’s be honest) Keohane Fire Lane — the demand side.

Regurgitating passages from my Economics 101 textbook is a simple task, but making fewer students drive to campus each day is a more complicated one. For instance, the easiest method of decreasing demand for Blue Zone passes would be to simply raise the price of obtaining one, something the administration has done repeatedly. The cost of a pass has increased by 34 percent since I arrived on campus in 2012, a 2015 infographic published in The Chronicle indicates, yet the number of passes sold continues to exceed the number of spaces in Blue Zone. While another hefty price hike would make some commuters reconsider their transportation options, I believe it would be counterproductive. After all, Durham is still a suburban city, and we need to address the reality that Dukies will always need cars, whether to drive home for the holidays or commute to further away yet cheaper apartment complexes. Alternatives must be considered.

I too considered substitutes to driving. Upon moving off campus for my senior year, I eschewed buying a Blue Zone parking pass; $354 seemed a steep price to pay for access to a lot that frequently fills to capacity early, leaving drivers circling for parking spots like vultures around roadkill. My inner urbanite celebrated this decision. After all, the LaSalle Loop bus route connected my apartment complex and West Campus, so my daily commute was sure to be a cakewalk. I was wrong.

According to the urban planning website CityLab, local bus service is viable only if vehicles depart at least every 15 minutes, something the LaSalle Loop does only after 5 p.m., when few students are going to or from campus. In other words, the schedules of buses connecting Duke and Durham were created with workers in mind, not students. Furthermore, the LaSalle bus runs on a one-way loop and takes 20 minutes to travel between my apartment complex and campus, making the allure of Ubering, parking in the Bryan Center deck or carpooling with a Blue Zone pass-blessed friend much more appealing than taking public transit.

In short, Duke Parking and Transportation employees have dedicated an undue amount of time to the parking side of their responsibilities and given short shrift to improving mass transportation. While promises that the status quo will (eventually) return may shut students up until the next Blue Zone project begins, I recommend DPT consider providing more palatable alternatives to driving. Two that come to mind are improving the frequency of bus service to heavily student-populated neighborhoods and making the gold-plated carpool pass more easily attainable and flexible (my roommates and I had to drive to campus separately far more than 10 times last semester, a common reality for which DPT does not account in its carpool policy). Both are simple fixes that would make it far easier for students to arrive on campus in something other than a car carrying only themselves, thus simultaneously ameliorating the parking problem and decreasing the University’s carbon footprint.

Incentives not to do something work best when paired with incentives to do its opposite, something of which administrators should be well aware as they search for an easy road out of the labyrinth that is this year’s parking situation. Until then, however, I recommend they park by the Duke Gardens visitor center. The lot is a quick walk to West and rarely ticketed.