The increase in students driving this year has left the Department of Public Safety without a decision on what to do about the parking problems at Iowa State.

Doug Houghton, program manager in charge of parking for the Department of Public Safety, said more students chose to bring a vehicle with them to school this year.

“Parking has been a problem in recent years, but this year the space is really tight,” Houghton said.

DPS sold 5,300 parking permits and 300 temporary permits to residence-hall students alone, he said. All together, the department will sell 20,000 parking permits in a year.

That includes faculty and staff, commuters, vendors and residents. The cost of a student permit is $42.

The department has to determine how many people brought a car to campus and how many people need permits before much can be done to alleviate the crowded lots.

“It will be a week full of figuring the numbers of cars,” Houghton said. “We sell half of the permits during the first week of classes.”

School officials are looking at a number of options to fix the problem.

“The solution to the problem is not small,” Houghton said.

One option DPS is considering is a new parking lot. Houghton said an engineer has already made plans for the new lot – but the problem now is figuring out where to put it.

Houghton said the department considered a spot behind Jack Trice Stadium.

“The stadium would be very versatile,” he said.

However, he said parking at the stadium would cause the athletics department to lose a practice field.

“The space on campus is tight,” Houghton said. “No matter where we choose to build more parking, we will have to give up something.”

He said another option being considered is near the residence halls, which would require the loss of a recreational field.

He said the department is even looking into the possibility of another parking ramp to save space.

For now, DPS is making temporary parking available to students until a permanent solution is found.

“We have put 300 students in places that we normally wouldn’t, because we usually use some of the lots as staff parking,” Houghton said. “We won’t put any students in spaces we are not comfortable with, safety wise.”

The former driver’s training lot, located on the north side of 13th Street, is being used as one of the temporary lots. Houghton said the department has sold 110 spaces in this lot, but no more will be sold.

“We aren’t using the back part of the lot for safety reasons,” Houghton said. “It is not very well lit.”

Lot 29, behind the Molecular Biology building, also is being used for temporary parking.

Houghton said the department decided not to sell 100 of the spaces in Lot 29 for permanent use, because the spaces will be taken over by construction work before the end of the semester.

“We sold temporary permits to residence-hall students, knowing that the number of cars will eventually decrease,” Houghton said.

He said the numbers of cars will drop in the next few weeks, because students often take their cars home on Labor Day and many drop classes after the first week of class.

The lots at Jack Trice Stadium are overflowing as well.

“This year there is absolutely no space left at the stadium,” Houghton said. “There are students even having to park their cars on grass.”

However, he does not see there being a problem with parking during the football games.

“Students are given the permit knowing that they must move their cars by midnight the night before a game,” Houghton said. “This is printed on the back of the permit, along with a schedule of the home games.”

Houghton said, on average, 20 students tend to forget to move their cars before football games.

“We have to ticket and tow these cars, because the spaces are needed for media, handi-cap parking and buses,” he said.

The impact of the increase in cars on campus has even affected those who don’t need a permit.

Andy Zehr, graduate student in journalism and mass communication, said he has run into problems in the commuter lots near Hilton Coliseum.

“It has been full,” Zehr said. “Usually the middle of the day is bad, but this morning I even had trouble finding a place to park.”