With two large construction projects looming in the not-too-distant future, the Administration Division, in concert with members of the Troy City Planning Commission, have developed a draft parking proposal for the campus in order to ease RPI and the surrounding community through the construction period.
Claude Rounds, vice president for administration, said the emphasis of the proposal is on “developing parking with a customer service perspective.”
The plan calls for students with commuter parking permits to park in the lots by the Houston Field House and to take advantage of a regular shuttle to the core campus. Faculty and staff will still be allowed to park in campus lots.
Commuting students will no longer be charged for permits, and will still be allowed to park on campus in the evening, on weekends, and on holidays.
During the day on weekdays, however, commuters will be required to participate in a newly implemented shuttle system which will run from the Field House to the northeast corner of the JEC, with a stop outside the Rensselaer Union.
Rather than using CDTA, RPI will run its own shuttle system, under the supervision of the Department of Public Safety. The buses will be driven by Public Safety Assistants who will also serve as monitors for student safety and security concerns.
Small buses, which seat 12 passengers each, will run from 7 am to 11 pm. During peak hours, five buses will be in service, making stops at each site about every ten minutes. Fewer buses will run during off-peak hours; despite decreased traffic, they will be expected to keep up the same cycle time.
“We’re going to try to take the bus through as many of the lots as possible,” Rounds said. The shuttle will enter the horseshoe outside of the Union, and will run a loop through the lots near the Field House.
Facilities for riders will be improved at those locations, including better outdoor lighting, call boxes, and shelters. “What we’re looking at right now is opening up the Field House [for riders],” Rounds said.
Since the new Biotechnology Center is slated to be constructed on the parking lot next to the CII—over parking spaces used by many faculty and staff—the already problematic parking situation that exists on and around the main campus will be amplified.
To alleviate such parking tension, the major construction plans also call for a new parking garage to be built off of College Avenue. However, the location of the garage also eliminates parking spaces . All told, Rounds estimates that 560 parking spaces will be lost when construction on the garage begins.
Among the reasons for choosing commuters to move to the Field House was that the number of commuters closely matches this number. Rounds said an informal study determined that during peak times, approximately 550 cars with commuter permits park on the main campus.
In addition, safety concerns were raised about requiring resident students to park at the Field House late at night and on weekends, when there would be no shuttle service.
Also, students parking on city streets surrounding campus are more often commuters than residents. Rounds hopes that, rather than spending time looking for street parking, more commuters will make use of the new shuttle.
Department of Public Safety Director Bernie Drobnicki called attention to how the campus came together to get through the Union revitalization and the construction of Barton Hall and the Mueller Center.
“We lived through that experience, and we benefited from [those] facilities,” he said.
He expects to see the same response for the upcoming projects.
“This is an exciting time. It’s a time for growth for Rensselaer,” Drobnicki said.
“The result, I think, is going to be tremendous,” he continued, but cautioned, “There’s going to be some growing pains.”
