By Breanna Mudd
As students settle into their schedules, people may begin to notice that student parking has expanded to areas never before offered. These parking opportunities are available to University of Louisville commuter students through a new parking permit.
The permit name bears a resemblance to one of the other permits available. The new purple plus permit is an upgrade to the purple permit that was already available through the parking office. The regular purple pass allows students to park at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. In contrast, the purple plus permit allows students to park not only in the stadium lot, but also three other lots located around campus.
The three lots being used for the purple plus parking are lots that were originally designed for football stadium parking. Two of these lots are located on Floyd Street. The S lot directly across from Cardinal Stadium is now available, as is the P lot just south of the railroad tracks on Floyd Street. The P lot has the potential to save students from riding the shuttle, due to its close proximity to campus. The final new addition to parking is the lot at Jim Patterson Stadium, located on Third Street just north of the Central Avenue intersection.
Though this news gives students more options, there are other factors they must consider throughout the year. The S and P lots, as well as the lot at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium, are not available on days of home football games. The same goes for the Jim Patterson Stadium lot on the days of baseball home games.
Still, the new lots were created to make the commute to and from campus a bit smoother.
“The new lots will ease congestion by diverting traffic away from the current lots at the stadium,” said Doreen Wood, associate director of parking and transportation at U of L. “For instance, one of the new lots must be entered and exited from Boxley Avenue off Central Avenue.”
Although 215 students have already purchased or upgraded their passes to the purple plus permit, many students don’t even realize the opportunity exists.
“I only knew about the yellow pass that residents had and the regular purple pass,” said Stefan Vuleta, a freshman political science major. “Personally, I think this pass could be very beneficial to most students, depending on their schedules, and that it has the potential to be a significant time saver.”
Students seem to feel that the new parking pass will likely be very beneficial for them.
“I was unaware of the existence of the purple plus permits,” said Jordan Meyer, a sophomore electrical engineering major. “[I] am new to campus. But in theory it seems like a good idea, especially for students who are commuters and would only need a parking space for a limited time period.”
To obtain the new purple plus permit, students can upgrade or downgrade their current pass, by taking the pass to the parking office. Students will either pay the difference between the cost of their old pass and the plus pass or be refunded the difference. Permits can also be ordered with a credit card over the Internet and picked up with a student identification card at the parking office, located in the Floyd Street garage. The purple plus pass is $106, only $13 more than the original purple pass that only allows access to the Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium lot.
