This year Queen’s staff and faculty should find it easier to find park on main and west campus due to the addition of two underground facilities with a total of 750 spots.
All University employees, ed students and persons who work in University-owned buildings may apply for a parking permit and with more spaces available more permits will also be made available, Queen’s Financial Director David Crabb told the Journal in an e-mail.
This is good news for students on the waiting list for main campus parking es, he said, but students living within the core zone surrounding campus are still ineligible for Main Campus parking es. .
For students living on campus or in the student ghetto this can be frustrating.
Sarah Kingston, ArtSci ’11, brought her car to campus in first year but couldn’t get a main campus parking .
She said she lived in Victoria Hall and could look out her window at the parking lot.
“There were spots everywhere on main campus,” she said, adding that she ended up having to park on West Campus.
She didn’t bring up her car again after first year because walking back and forth to get it was a nuisance and leaving it on main campus led to a number of tickets.
Since the city is pretty walkable, Kingston said it just didn’t make sense to have a car.
“I would rather walk to the grocery store than get a ticket,” she said. “There is no need for students to bring up a car. It’s a nuisance.”
Since most Queen’s students live near campus parking is not as big an issue for students as it would be at some commuter schools. Crabb said that the addition of 750 new spots however doesn’t change this and every student shouldn’t bring a car up to university.
“The Parking department understands students require the convenience of personal transportation during their educational experience,” he said. “However due to the ongoing changes in parking availability, we encourage incoming students to call our office prior to arriving to further inquire about parking services.”
He said that parking rates vary depending on the location.
“Underground parking at Union Street and the Queen’s Centre is $103.96, surface parking is $75.71 and Richardson Stadium at West Campus is $40.68,” he said, adding that the cost includes a for a shuttle bas that travels from West to Main campus.
Vehicles that are parked incorrectly or with improper or fraudulent use of permit will be ticketed and could be towed.
Crabb said that parking rates will not be affected by the Harmonized Sales Tax so students shouldn’t worry about tax-related price hikes.
“Parking costs prior to the implementation of the Harmonized Sales Tax were subject to both PST and GST (13%), thus the introduction of HST did not alter the pricing.”
According to Crabb, Queen’s offers comparable parking rates to other Canadian universities. For example, the University of Ottawa monthly parking rates are $90 for surface parking and $134 for underground parking.
Like Queen’s, University of Ottawa also offers a carpool program, in which reserved parking spaces are offered to cars who have formed carpools. Queen’s charges $2 an hour for main campus parking, while daily parking at University of Ottawa costs $4 an hour.
Other campuses such as McMaster and York University provide similar parking rates and services.
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