UF employees and students who own staff commuter decals or green decals will have different parking options starting May 1.
The biggest change will be that Garage 7 at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center will no longer permit staff commuter decal parking, said Scott Fox, director of UF’s Transportation and Parking Services.
This should relieve the current shortage of green decal parking, he said.
Green decal areas were always intended primarily for graduate and professional students, Fox said. But previously, employees with staff commuter decals could park in all green-only areas as well.
For years, the staff commuter decal has been a less-expensive option for employees. Starting May 1, the annual decal will cost $156. Because more employees have bought them, green lots have recently been overflowing, especially when the O’Connell Center hosts events.
This trend reached its tipping point in January, Fox said. Parking services reviewed the vehicles in the O’Connell Center garage and found that 37 percent had staff commuter decals.
A similar situation was happening near the Health Science Center.
“It was never intended to be that way,” Fox said. “On the academic side, we’re here for students. We’re correcting an imbalance.”
Fox said he thinks some employees will buy the yearlong $312 orange decals.
UF’s Other Personnel Services employees are not eligible for an upgrade and will be inconvenienced the most by these changes, he said. Parking services is considering accommodations for them.
“The good news for students is their green parking should become more available,” Fox said. “The news for employees is that they will either have to park further away or upgrade to a more expensive decal.”
Faculty Senate Chairman Scott Nygren said he hasn’t heard any reaction from UF staff members, but that might be because the changes were just announced. They might respond when the changes actually go into effect, he said, but it’s hard to predict. Some faculty members are used to parking in certain spots and can get upset when they discover they have to do something else.
“This is something that routinely happens,” Nygren said.
Contact Julia Glum at jglum@alligator.org.
The changes, according to an email from UF Transportation and Parking
Services, include:
- Staff commuter decal parking will not be allowed in Garage 7 at the O’Connell Center.
- Seventy-two green parking spaces will convert to orange at the northwest corner of the O’Connell Center surface lot.
- Levels five and six of Garage 13 at Transportation and Parking Services will change from green parking to blue parking.
- The rooftop level of Garage 9 south of Archer Road will switch from blue parking to green parking.
