Students frustrated by the lack of free shuttle parking at Lloyd Noble Center prompted OU President David Boren to double the spaces Wednesday afternoon.

Boren directed OU Parking Services to add 600 free spaces to the east and west sides of the Cleveland Area Rapid Transit shuttle parking lot. The area, located on the north central side of the lot, now contains about 1,200 spaces.

While students riding the bus to main campus can park for free, students who park in the southeast corner of the lot and walk to the research campus will still be required to have a permit.

Until now, students, faculty and staff members at the research campus could park in the southeast corner of the Lloyd Noble Center lot for free. Now, parking services are requiring anyone parked outside of the north central lot to have a parking permit.

“I have to do this if I am going to stall parking permit prices going up for everyone,” said Doug Myers, director of parking and transportation services. “This is better for the campus.”

Myers said he needed to “increase the bottom line” for parking services, a self-supporting department that doesn’t receive any state funds.

“If we get everyone to pay, we won’t have to raise rates,” said Myers.

Permit costs have remained flat for six years. Revenue collected from permits and tickets is used to maintain parking lots, garages and security, he said.

On Wednesday, parking services began ticketing cars parked outside of the designated CART area without properly warning students.

Section III of the Parking and Traffic Regulations states, “the text of all substantive changes will be published in The Oklahoma Daily on at least four successive days at least one week prior to implementation.”

Parking services failed to comply and only posted notifications on their Twitter and website.

Myers, who started his job in March, said he overlooked the regulation.

“I apologize,” Myers said. “I was new and so was my marketing and PR employee.”

Around 1 p.m. Wednesday, parking control attendants were notified to no longer ticket cars without permits in the newly opened spots.

All citations given Wednesday will be voided and warnings will be issued through Friday, he said.

Tickets will not be issued until signs are posted in the lot, designating where permits are necessary. This could happen as early as Monday.

“I’m not trying to hide anything,” Myers said. “I am here for the students and I apologize for this.”

Cory Lloyd, University of Oklahoma Student Association vice-president, said he learned about the changes this summer while working on parking initiatives. He said the student response was vital to the addition of 600 parking spots.

“Student feedback is vital to the success of anything,” said Lloyd, advertising senior. “I think it’s great students spoke up and Doug [Myers] has been great about responding to what he’s hearing.”

Additional parking control assistants were not hired to issue tickets in the Lloyd Noble Center lot, but redistributed from other lots, Myers said.

MORE INFO:
Tickets will be issued in all lots, except the north central CART shuttle lot from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday while school is in session.