Parking fees at Mount Royal College set to nearly double

Students returning to Mount Royal College in the fall will see the price of their parking permits almost double.

"This is ridiculous," said second-year student Yi Fei Liu, 19, who paid just over $100 for his winter permit. The cheapest option on campus in the coming year will cost $180 per semester.

"I'm already angry at the school as it is," said Liu. "Tuition hikes, lack of facilities, they don't even have two-ply toilet paper in the bathroom." 

'The supply and demand is the big factor here on campus with more students and less spaces.' — Stefan Durston

The college will also stop designating some lots to students and others to staff, while students living in residence will lose their priority parking. Instead, the same three permit options will be opened to everyone: $180 for opened lots, $260 for gated lots and $360 for underground parking. 

Plans to axe two existing parking lots and re-zone two others into day lots will result in 1,500 fewer permits to go around.

"It's going to be a difficult 2009," said Stefan Durston, manager of parking and transportation services at Mount Royal College. "The supply and demand is the big factor here on campus with more students and less spaces."

Buildings to take over parking lots

As Mount Royal College works toward becoming a university, new buildings will take over old parking lots. Durston said the school plans to add a science and technology wing, a music conservatory and a new library within the current campus boundaries. To accommodate the changes, a 1,200-stall parkade will be erected across from the Bissett School of Business on Mount Royal Gate in about two years.

"We're looking at probably $45- to $50 million for the parkade," Durston said. "We need to recover $4.1 million annually in the debt service payments on the parkade, and with that it was just pure arithmetic of dividing the permits to per stall, which was determined by a user group or committee."

The college cannot use tuition or government grants to pay for the parkade, said Durston. So 2009 will be a transitional year as students and staff deal with fewer spaces and the construction of a new parkade.

Student council has identified parking as one if its main concerns in the coming year. Robert Jones, VP external of the students association, said he's exploring other options, such as arranging buses to shuttle students in residence to and from grocery stores.

"Unfortunately, it's a problem we're going to have for a long time," he said. "We're looking into — can we get more people on the bus? Can we get more people car-pooling?"

Students have cheap transit pass

All Mount Royal students pay $80 per semester for a U-pass. It allows them unlimited access to Calgary Transit buses and C-trains. Currently, five buses stop at Mount Royal regularly. The City of Calgary decided last year it will not run the west leg of the LRT to Mount Royal. 

"Where I had lived for most of my time coming here was way out in the northwest," said nursing graduate Amy Vielleux. "I would've had to take a bus to Dalhousie station, take the train from Dalhousie to Brentwood, then a bus from Brentwood. That's three different buses and trains and with winter, you could basically expect your travelling time to be two hours."

Vielleux said even though she owned a parking permit at one point, the lots were often full. So she would park in nearby residential areas and walk 15 minutes to school. 

"Each year it seemed like the parking space would decrease," she said. "A lot of the residential spots are for two hours only and you would get ticketed."

Off-campus parking is currently available to students for $26 per month. The lot, also known as S10, is on lease. But as housing developments continue in the Currie Barracks, the area off Richardson Way will soon be off limits.

Durston said he understands parking will be a challenge, but added the parkade, once complete, will increase the total number of parking spaces on campus by 60 stalls.