Poll: What's the parking situation at your workplace?

In My Humble Opinion
21

The parking situation where I work is awful if you work downtown (as opposed to off-site, like me).

  1. If you’re lucky enough to have a parking permit, you don’t have to pay. If you don’t have a parking permit, you pretty much have to take the bus, walk, or try to find an off-campus parking spot and feed the meter all day.

  2. We have at least five parking ramps along with I don’t know how many open lots. Also, we have two shuttle lots where you can park your car and ride a school bus the rest of the way. There’s also many shuttle buses that go out to surrounding communities that are paid for by my employer, but they’re not an option if you work an odd shift. We have one ramp and a couple lots that are reserved for patients and visitors, and the other ramps and lots are reserved for doctors and the rest of the staff who have a whole lot of seniority.

  3. No.

  4. Yes, but the type of permit you’re given depends on your position and your senority. When I started, they were still giving shuttle lot permits to new employees. However, they ran out of space, and new employees get jack. Doctors and people who have been there for more than like 10 years get ramp access, people who have been there more than like 2 years (not sure of the exact figure) get shuttle lot access, and everybody else has to figure out something on their own.

  5. It mattered to me when I first started because I lived out of town. Then I moved and lived 7 blocks away from my building, so I just walked. Then I moved out of town again, but shortly after that, I changed departments and moved off site, so now I park in a lovely lot where I never have to worry about finding a spot. Don’t have to deal with the friggin’ elevators anymore either.

Parking is a very big deal where I work…people have based their decisions about changing jobs on how their parking access will be affected. I hear my employer is building two more parking ramps behind my building sometime in the next few years with shuttle buses to downtown to help alleviate the problem.

22

Company lot, free parking. No spot is much more than 60 feet from the door.

No reserved spaces - we used to have one for the VP, but it was removed when they figured out (duh!) that it had morale implications.

No company car.

They don’t issue permits. They supposedly do record license plates. If there was any reason for anyone else to park in the lot, they’d probably issue stickers - but all the businesses around there have their own ample lots.

23

University student and employee checking in.

Unfortunately the “student” presides over “employee” - even for graduate assistants and TA’s - so here is my situation…

  1. I have to pay for a little sticker every semester that marks my car as a commuting student, which means…

  2. I can only park in the student areas, which consists of the stadium, university center, and random off-campus lots. There are other lots for students, but only those who live on-campus. The lot immediately outside my office building is for non-student employees, handicapped, and 15-minute parking.

  3. Only if going along on a job with repair (I work in the computer center); though I don’t drive it, so I don’t park it.

  4. Yep, see above.

  5. I wish. Granted, the parking situation here is definitely not as bad as other places of work or even other universities, but it would be nice to have a few perks that incoming freshmen don’t have :rolleyes:

24
  1. Or is it all of this a moot point for you?

It is pretty much a moot point for me. I just park my car in the parking lot of where I work. It is free and we don’t need a permit.

Sounds like I am lucky.

25

The company pays our parking expenses for the building’s underground lot. We’re issued transponders so our cars can go in and out without using tickets. The employees pay nothing.

Underground lot. Just handicapped spaces, plus the bottom floor has a reserved space for an Avis rental business.

What is this “company car” you speak of?

You can’t get in without a transponder or without paying.

26

I do. The parking fees here are $40/student, $50/faculty-staff, $90/faculty reserved. And parking is just tight enough to make it worthwhile to pay for a reserved spot. In other words:

  1. Yes (I pay $90/semester).
  2. Open lots, with some designated for student parking and some for faculty/staff parking with reserved spots available in the faculty/staff lot.
  3. No (although university vehicles are available if I’m doing a field tirp or travelling on university business).
  4. Yes
27

1. Do you have to pay to park where you work? Do you pay the employer, or buy a ticket, use a meter, or other?

Work (small-city newspaper): no.
School (community college): $10 per car per year permit.

2. Do you have a parking structure, an open lot, or other? Any reserved spaces besides handicapped?
Work: Open lot, reserved for customers close to the building, employees park next door on the concrete slab where the office was before they tore it down and built the new one.
School: Open lots, reserved spots up close for faculty and visitors.

3. Do you use a company car?
No, but they pay me for mileage.

4. Do you need a permit to park there?
(answered above)

Small towns are nice. :stuck_out_tongue:

28

I’m a graduate student doing some part-time “consulting” at a nearby company.

1. Do you have to pay to park where you work? Do you pay the employer, or buy a ticket, use a meter, or other?
School: No. I’m very much aware that this is unusual for college campuses, and I’m quite pleased about it.
Work: No.

2. Do you have a parking structure, an open lot, or other? Any reserved spaces besides handicapped?

School: Three large parking structures, and a host of lots ranging from pretty big to very small. Parking on city streets in the vicinity of campus is heavily utilized, as well. There is usually space in the campus lots, but street parking is usually far closer to my building.

All faculty members and many administrative higher-ups have personally reserved spaces (M-F 7am-6pm). There are also a host of spots (required by some local ordinance, I believe) for registered carpools only - many of these are usually empty. Other than that, it’s a huge free-for-all.

Work: Very small lot behind the building. There are only about 10 employees, and most of the time everybody fits. Sometimes you have to block somebody in, but people understand this and are good about asking/moving if somebody needs to leave. Street parking outside is 1-hour during the day, so it’s of limited use.

3. Do you use a company car?
School: No.
Work: No.

4. Do you need a permit to park there?
School: Yes, but despite their rhetoric they’re extremely lax about enforcement. It’s an annually-replaced mirror-tag that (technically) I can use on either of the two vehicles I’ve registered - my truck and my wife’s car. In practice, it really doesn’t seem to matter.
Work: No.

5. Or is it all of this a moot point for you?
Hardly. I do realize that the parking situation at my school is far better than that at most, so I’m basically pretty content with it.

29

  1. Free.

  2. Open lot on a large site dedicated to our company, out in the woods. First come, first serve, which is made more complicated due to some jobs requiring 3 shifts coverage.

  3. No.

  4. No permit, but you can’t get in the front gates without employee ID.

30
31

**
Free.
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2. Do you have a parking structure, an open lot, or other? Any reserved spaces besides handicapped?
**
All open now, but I’m moving to a place with a garage also. There are reserved visitors spots, from when my building was the temporary customer visitor center. I don’t care, since when I get there I can park very close to the door of my building. (Our buildings are in a ring, and the parking surrounds the buildings.)
**
3. Do you use a company car?
**
No. We don’t have any.
**
4. Do you need a permit to park there?
**
No.
**
5. Or is it all of this a moot point for you?
**
My father had a much valued permit for the UN garage, so I understand why this is sometimes an issue. (He never had trouble getting people in his car pool). In silicon valley, it is a moot point, unless they’re doing construction and wiping out a good bit of your lot.

32

1. Do you have to pay to park where you work? Do you pay the employer, or buy a ticket, use a meter, or other?
Yes- I used to pay $115/mo to park in our contract lot directly behind our building. Now that I am there only half time (telecommute from home 50%), it’s cheaper to park in a lot. I have been paying $8.00 for underground parking next door, or $8.50 at the public lot a block away.

2. Do you have a parking structure, an open lot, or other? Any reserved spaces besides handicapped?
As noted above, there is a contract lot directly behind my building. All reserved spaces. Nothing for disabled.

3. Do you use a company car?
Nope

4. Do you need a permit to park there?
Yup

5. Or is it all of this a moot point for you?
Nope. I know many people who bus, but in order to get LilMiss to daycare, ,we would have to leave at 6:15am, bus to DT Minneapolis, back out to another suburb, then I would have to bus back DT again. No thanks.

33
  1. No cost to park.
  2. We not only have a parking garage, we have the largest parking garage in Madison. Tremble before it!
  3. No.
  4. Window sticker that doesn’t stick, is that a “permit”?
  5. No.
34
  1. No cost to park, but I do need an access sticker on my windshield.
  2. Open lot. No reserved spaces.
  3. No company car.
  4. See #1
35

  1. Free lot

  2. Free, w/ reserved spots for three directors

  3. N/A

  4. Do you need a permit to park there?
    (answered above)

  5. moot

36

Where I work, the parking garage is $4,800 per year for a space - not a reserved space, just a space. It’s too painful to talk anything more about it.

37

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by vivalostwages *
1. Do you have to pay to park where you work?

Nope.

2. Do you have a parking structure, an open lot, or other? Any reserved spaces besides handicapped?

Open lot with all the best spots reserved for visitors. VP and above have their own lot in a very inconvenient location.

3. Do you use a company car?

Only available to VP and up who usually prefer to buy their own luxo cruisers vs driving the company Dodge Intrepid.

4. Do you need a permit to park there?

Nope
5. Is parking plentiful where you work?

Yes, yes it is. I am one of the last to arrive and usually have a few dozen undesireable spots from which to choose. At least I have a place to park and it’s easy to find my car when it’s the only one left in the lot when I go home. Not true at our headquarters in Chicaggy.

38

I don’t have to pay or use a permit. I work at a retail store in a strip mall, and the up-close spaces are reserved for customers; we employees park all the way out in the spaces that front the highway, and walk across the whole parking lot to get in. There’s only once been a shortage of boondocks parking and that was when we had 30 extra employees helping us remodel the store - customers never seem to even contemplate parking there. It’s too far for them to walk.

39

We don’t have to pay, just have a permit. However, if you get in after 8 it may take you a half an hour to find a spot and it will likely be a mile away and you’ll have to bus in.

40

  1. Do you have to pay to park where you work? Do you pay the employer, or buy a ticket, use a meter, or other?
    Nope, I don’t have to pay

  2. Do you have a parking structure, an open lot, or other? Any reserved spaces besides handicapped?
    Open lot, we share our parking with 4 other stores in our strip mall, with employee parking done at either end as a general rule of thumb

  3. Do you use a company car?
    Pfft, no

  4. Do you need a permit to park there?
    Nope

  5. Or is it all of this a moot point for you?
    Our employee parking gets filled up quick during peak hours but when I get here in the morning it’s really a non issue