Student commuter trends

Every day, thousands of students drive, bike and take public transit to campus.

Three days a week, Jacob Foley gets up at 6:30 a.m. to get ready for school. Although he doesn’t have class until 9:00 a.m., Foley said that’s usually how long it takes him to get ready and go from his home in Vancouver, Wash., to Portland State’s campus on his bicycle.

In another part of town, sophomore Cynthia McKinna waits patiently for the TriMet MAX Green Line from her home in Northeast Portland to campus. Her twice-daily trips take an hour total.

Another student, freshman Ali Alali, drives to school in only 10 minutes. However, Alali said some days he spends up to 20 minutes trying to find a parking spot on campus.

For those who live on campus—and thus have a geographic advantage over their peers—education is only a few blocks away. But at PSU, commuter students are in the clear majority.

“There are about 28,000 students at PSU, 2000 of them live on campus housing, the rest live at home or off campus,” said Sarah Devita, assistant for University Housing.

According to Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS), out of the students who responded to a 2009 survey, 39 percent took public transit, 25 percent drive and 11 percent bike to campus.

“We have seen that the demand for bike parking has grown significantly over the past five years—the number of students who drive alone had gone down dramatically [since 1997],” said Dan Zalkow, associate director of Auxiliary Services.

According to the survey, the number of students who said they drove alone to campus has seen the most dramatic decrease, from 44 percent in 1997 to 25 percent in 2009.

Students’ mode of transportation has a big impact on the university and the community.

Zalkow said the increase in bike commuting is a positive thing. It saves students money as well as the university, which can then invest less in parking infrastructure.

“It cost approximately $50,000 to built one underground parking space,” Zalkow said. “We would have to charge students a lot more than what we’re charging now, about $400 more a month to pay for a new parking structure.”

In comparison, Zalkow said the newly finished Southwest Montgomery Street bike parking cost only $200,000 to accommodate 75 bikes. That amount would only pay for four car parking spots on campus.

According to Zalkow, parking structures one and two were built decades ago but have yet to be fully paid off.

Funded in part by a $50,000 grant from Metro Regional Government, the bike garage will be open in late February. Located next to Blumel Hall, the building will feature a secure storage facility for bikes with camera monitoring and restricted access. The cost to students for use of the facility has not yet been determined, but Zalkow said it will be a low price, between $5 and $10 per month.

For students who drive to school, limited parking spaces on campus is their biggest concern.

“I buy a full-time parking permit but I usually have to go early, before 11 a.m., before all the good spots are taken,” said second-year biology student Jamie Mullin.

Though students like Mullin and Alali want an increase in good parking spaces, Zalkow said the university currently has no plans to allot more space for car parking in the center of campus.
“We don’t think that’s the best use of land on campus,” Zalkow said.

Currently, TAPS offers 18 different types of parking permits for different areas and time periods. The highest demand is for primary parking spaces in the center of campus, and the most popular days are Tuesday and Thursday. A permit for those days in a primary location costs $184 per term.

According to TAPS, about 85 percent of the money students pay for parking permits goes to operating and maintaining structures, and 15 percent goes to subsidizing alternative transportation methods including the TriMet FlexPass.