Parking at Iowa State has become a hot issue, as more students have chosen to bring cars to college. While there are an abundance of parking spaces away from Central Campus, students deal with parking permits, meter fees and costly violation fees to gain entry into limited parking spaces near campus.

Doug Houghton, Department of Public Safety parking division director, said last year 65 percent of students brought cars to campus.

“When I started, six or seven years ago … 45 percent of students brought cars,” Houghton said.

There are over 18,000 parking spaces located throughout campus and university housing. However, a student body of over 25,000-plus faculty and staff, it is unrealistic to expect everyone to be able to park on Central Campus, he said.

Houghton said faculty and staff have fairly good parking on campus, often only having to walk a block, but most students are not able to park so conveniently.

“Everybody gets a place to park,” Houghton said. “It may not be right next to your building, but if you want one, we’ll get you one.”

Brian Shipley, senior in history, said he parks his car in the Memorial Union parking ramp every day, which costs him $15 a week, to avoid long bus rides from his home in north Ames.

“If I pull a quick one and park on campus, I usually end up paying for it in a ticket,” Shipley said. “I get lots of tickets.”

Parking problems are not limited to Iowa State. Other universities, including the University of Montana, the University of Arkansas, Southeast Missouri State University and Auburn University also have reported problems with a shortage of parking.

Houghton said a comprehensive study was done of Iowa State’s parking system ten years ago and two recommendations were made to improve it.

The first recommendation was to develop a shuttle system, which led to the modifications of the CyRide system. He said with nearly 2,500 students riding the bus each day, the shuttle system has “gone extremely well.”

Emily Hoppenworth, junior in English, said she rides the bus to class almost every day because there isn’t enough parking near campus. She said she would park on campus more often if more spaces were available to students, although she believes it would still be good for the environment to ride the bus sometimes.

“I don’t know what I’d do to change [the parking system],” Hoppenworth said, “but I do think it needs to be changed.”

The second recommendation was to expand parking on campus. Currently, the parking division is building a new parking deck and has plans for another parking deck on the horizon, Houghton said.

“Our difficulty now is land space,” Houghton said. “Our only opportunity is to build up.”

Building up can be a costly issue, Houghton said. It costs approximately $2,000 to build and maintain one parking space on the ground. In comparison, it costs over $10,000 to build and maintain one multilevel parking stall, he said.

Houghton said, at Iowa State, peak parking hours on campus are from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and it isn’t cost effective to create parking ramps if they will only be filled during these hours.

The cost of a parking space for students is currently $72, which is the second lowest cost throughout the Big 12 schools, Houghton said. Permit fees are expected to raise $15 next year, as they have for the past two years. Permits from students as well as faculty and staff contributes to over $1,000,000 of the DPS Parking Division’s $2,700,000 budget.

The DPS parking division does not receive any state or university funding for projects or maintenance, Houghton said. However, with revenues from violation fees exceeding $1,000,000, some students, like Shipley, are footing the bill.

Houghton said DPS receives some parking-related complaints, but not many. He said the majority of parking related complaints were from people who want better enforcement of parking violators.

“Parking at ISU is as good or better than anywhere else,” Houghton said.

— The Associated Press contributed to this article.