A new parking deck extension will offer 300 new spots to be in service starting next September.
The new parking space will be located next to the existing RAWC parking lot.
The UTM Campus Council approved a three-percent increase in parking fees in a meeting held in February. Fee changes will be implemented starting in September.
Several UTMSU representatives who attended the meeting objected against the high cost of parking at UTM. UTM’s chief administrative officer, Paul Donoghue, explained that the increase in fees won’t be intended for maximizing surplus, but will instead be used towards the capital reserve for parking.
The rate for a student unreserved permit for the current year is $285.07 per session. According to Sonia Borg, UTM’s assistant director, the rate will increase to $293.62 per session for 2016/17—an $8.55 increase.
As previously reported in The Medium, Donoghue explained in the meeting that the project has been brought forward by a year because of UTM’s increase in population and the elimination of parking lot 1 due to the construction in the North Building.
Donoghue added that building a parking deck at the south end of UTM is not only environmentally friendly, as requested by UTM principal Deep Saini, but is also aesthetically pleasing, since it’s not “hard landscape”.
Donoghue highlighted the improvements made by the introduction of the U-Pass in a meeting report of the campus affairs committee.
“Rates of demand for parking declined from a peak of approximately 30 spaces per 100 campus population to between 15 to 20 spaces,” he said. However, he also noted that regardless of these improvements, for “much of the campus population, the utility of public transit service to UTM is limited”.
Construction for the project began in February, after a one-year delay caused by a “tight and not flexible” construction period, said Nicolle Wahl, assistant director of communications.
This article has been corrected.
- March 22, 2016 at 4 p.m.: The photo was originally credited to Joshan Ramnauth.
