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Need to balance parking and environment
24 March 2007
The hot topic in recent weeks at the University has been parking, and most people want to comment on it in frustration and isolation. But it is not an isolated topic because the University has a broader agenda, which includes a vitally important role as an environmental exemplar, deeply concerned with sustainability issues on campus.
There is already more extensive parking provision at USC than any other Queensland university, and we are also distinctive in that to date, we have not charged for parking.
Illegal parking has become rife even though spaces invariably exist at the Innovation Centre, Sports Club, and Arts area. Many are not prepared to walk 400 metres to their destination.
One upset student emailed me this week complaining about the kerb parking that blocked kangaroo movements, and hinted that further restrictions on such parking were necessary.
Some have said that we are now at a point where, like other uni’s, we need to charge modest daily fees to provide multi-storey car parks.
This week the University Council approved the campus Master Plan, and I have also commissioned an urgent, independent, traffic and parking study.
Even before there are outcomes from that study, we are taking steps for clearer directions being given by designated security staff, to available spaces, to avoid for as long as possible, fines and towing away vehicles. But some people are pushing the boundaries too far.
The campus Master Plan reasserts the importance and fragility of this beautiful campus, and everyone has a moral responsibility to ensure the long-term sustainability of the campus.
Even the earliest Plan in 1994 stressed how easy it would be to provide more and more bitumen car parks, but with growth that strategy would guarantee the destruction of any attempt to preserve parts of the campus as ‘wildlife sanctuary’.
If the traffic study demonstrates the need for more spaces, then multi-storey provision is inevitable, followed by charges typical at almost all other universities. That route provokes consideration of students’ economic circumstances, on which we are also very sensitive.
Parking issues must be weighed with the environmental sustainability of the campus, and I hope everyone is becoming increasingly sensitive about the balance that must be struck.
Professor Paul Thomas AM is Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Sunshine Coast.