Cool news from Portland State: A minority of students and faculty now drive alone to campus.

Look how students are getting to campus:

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According to the school, the rate of students and employees driving to school alone is now half of what it was 10 years ago. How’d they make the change? Investment, investment, investment, both on the part of the university and TriMet:

• More than 2,000 bicycle parking spots, including indoor spots in two new bike garages
• A new on-campus bike repair shop called the PSU Bike Hub
• Discounted student and employee transit passes
• The new MAX Green Line train to PSU, which makes the campus a hub for transit

Sarah Shay Mirk reported on transportation, sex and gender issues, and politics at the Mercury from 2008-2013. They have gone on to make many things, including countless comics and several books.

8 replies on “Cars Are Now “Alternative Transportation” at PSU”

  2. Ha – I went to PSU. “Investment, investment, investment” is a little disingenuous – a single-term parking permit costs $318!! That’s a lot of freakin’ ramen.

    Give ’em pats on the back for the bike lanes and whatnot, but pricing people out of driving doesn’t seem as cool.

  4. Yeah, when I worked at a different university, they gave free parking to motorcycles. And that was rad. It’s too pricey at PSU! So I bus or bicycle. Nicely, they sell me bus passes for cheap.

  5. When I went to a school (Duke) where EVERYONE drove to campus and there were vast parking lots everywhere, parking was still upwards of $200/semester. That $318 figure even sounds a littles subsidized compared to other downtown lots, as tk pointed out. It’s not news that it’s expensive to provide parking spaces, even where real estate isn’t at a huge premium.

  6. I still find it laughable that there’s typically a crowd waiting at the Green Line stop towards PSU downtown. It’s literally like a 5 minute walk, but there’s usually a crap ton of people waiting.

  7. $318 might be an okay deal compared to Smart Park, but these are students we’re talking about. Most of ’em are living on the cheap(ish).

    Not to mention that there’s a limited amount of those $318 permits — which often sell out before the term even starts — and so you end up paying the regular hourly rates.

  8. Sure the students are living on the cheap but it doesn’t mean the parking is any less to maintain or any less valuable. The more you are living on the cheap, the more appealing the alternate transportation should be!

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