Gaining access to parking spots has been difficult for many WashU students and faculty in recent years, given costs and limited availability of passes and spots. For an undergraduate student hoping to park in most areas on campus, they likely have to pay $918 per year. 

The University has five different parking zones, and permits are required for all of them. There are two different types of permits: red and yellow. Red permits cost $2,288 per year, while yellow permits cost $918. 

Yellow permits are primarily for students and allow parking for the full year in Zones 1-4. Students must choose only one zone to gain access to. 

Red permits are exclusively for employees and allow parking in Zones 1-5, with Zone 5 including WashU’s West and North Campuses. Faculty also have the option of purchasing a yellow faculty pass, which is valid in Zones 1-4. 

Students without permits are allowed to park anywhere except spots labeled “red permit parking” on campus between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m. on weekdays and all day on weekends. Students living in off-campus housing are also provided free parking spots at all times.

Jaime Hebel | Student Life

Senior Hanin Ghanam said that she feels frustrated about the price of parking passes, having purchased the yellow Zone 2 permit for two consecutive years.

“I think we all know that the parking pass is way too expensive,” Ghanam said. “I see the need for it, so that’s why I continue to buy it, but I don’t think it’s actually worth the amount you pay for it.”

Ghanam said the limited availability of parking spots and the lack of flexibility in garage parking options are the main reasons she believes the pass is not appropriately priced. She said that her Zone 2 yellow permit allows her to park in only the specifically-marked yellow zone spots in the DUC garage, lot in front of Simon, and the lot in front of Alumni House as well as a few other smaller lots nearby.

“I think that for how much the parking passes cost, there should be more options for parking,” Ghanam said.

Senior Matthew Hernandez said that he purchased a parking pass last year, but this year he felt like the cost of the pass was not worth it. Hernandez also said that some of his friends found alternative strategies to paying for parking last year.

“I’ve known people who just keep their cars on campus in the parking lot and let the parking tickets just pile up, because if you add all the cumulative tickets, it turns out to be less than buying the pass itself,” Hernandez said. “I think by the end of the year for one person it ended up being like $500, which is less than what I had to pay for the year.”

Hernandez, who usually parks in Zone 4 (which covers the South 40), noted that he had not had the same difficulty as Ghanam in finding available spaces to park. He said, though, that the price of the parking passes means that the University underutilizes its available space.

“For me there were many open spaces at the parking garage,” Hernandez said. “It would just be cool if it was more available to people, because then more people would probably use it, so then you [would] probably have to pay less per person.”

Junior Leah Colin said that food allergies required her to purchase a parking permit when she lived on campus last year.

“It was worth it to me to have a car,” Colin said. “The food situation here is difficult for me, and I basically needed to have a kitchen. For that, I needed a car to get to the grocery store.” 

She added that some of her friends decided not to purchase a permit this year due to the cost, and instead have asked Colin if they could use the spots given to her as part of her University Drive housing. 

“Since we have the spots assigned to our building, there were a bunch of people asking us, ‘Oh, can we use your spots? We can’t get parking passes, they’re too expensive, they sold out,’” Colin said.

The WashU Parking & Transportation Office said that they are continually making efforts to increase the accessibility of both parking passes and other campus transportation options.

“Given the limited availability of parking assets, WashU offers alternative, sustainable commuting options that align with university goals,” they wrote over email. “In addition to parking passes, students have access to several shuttle options and the Active Commuter Hub and are provided with cost-effective alternatives for getting to and from campus with our complimentary Metro U-Pass.”

WashU’s parking prices, overall, appear to be more costly than many other schools in the St. Louis area. 

WashU’s cost is more expensive than St. Louis University’s, which charges $560 for an annual parking permit for a resident. Some colleges, such as Maryville University, University of Missouri–St. Louis, St. Louis Community College, and Lindenwood University offer parking permits at no cost or included with tuition. 

Schools with similar endowments to WashU in the Midwest vary in parking permit costs. The University of Chicago charges between $135 to $235 per month, depending on the location undergraduates choose. Northwestern University parking permits cost $540 per year. 

Prices vary nationwide as well. Boston College, for example, charges $749 per semester for student resident parking permits and allows only upperclassmen to purchase permits. The University of Southern California (USC), in Los Angeles, only charges $558 per year for students in comparison. 

USC Transportation said that their parking prices were set in order to fund their parking systems. 

“Permit prices on our campus are mainly based on the cost of maintenance and upkeep for the garages and lots,” their office wrote over email.

At Vanderbilt University, parking permits run at $864 per year. Vanderbilt’s Parking and Transportation Office similarly said that their parking prices pay for maintenance and for university-run transportation. 

WashU has initiatives that aim to help community members get to campus in other ways besides just driving. The Active Commuter Hub, according to its website, “aims to support the WashU community commuting by bike, foot, public transit, or other active transportation by providing a place to shower, change, and get ready before the workday.” It is located on the lower level of Schnuck Pavilion.

The Office also referenced the Smart Commute page on their website, which details some alternatives to parking passes that people can use to travel to and from campus, including taking the MetroLink or biking to campus. 

Tab Birt, the Technical Director of the Edison Theater, said that for his role, these alternatives are “impractical at best.” 

“For me specifically, those [alternatives] don’t work because I don’t work a traditional 9-5 schedule,” Birt said. 

Birt said he works until after 9 p.m. about 50 nights every year, which means that many public transit options are significantly less staffed by the time he needs to get home. 

Birt also said that Smart Commute options are particularly disappointing for people who may have other family members’ schedules to worry about. 

“I think I’m almost the ideal candidate for [Smart Commute options]. I’m a single adult male, I don’t have kids, my grocery shopping is pretty small,” Birt said. “But if you have kids you have to drop off at school, you can’t take the bus to work.”

Birt also said that parking has been a consistent topic of conversation among University faculty.

“[Parking is] such a point of consternation for people working on campus,” Birt said. “Everyone is constantly complaining about the parking.”

For Birt, the main issue with the parking pass system is its pricing. For employees, choosing a yellow parking permit means a total of $918 is taken out of their paychecks over the course of a year, which Birt feels disproportionately impacts employees with shorter contracts and lower wages. 

“When you’re working in a higher-up position and making six figures, then $900 every year is nothing,” Birt said. “But then you have employees that work 10-month contracts or 30 hours a week, even some at 20 hours a week, and so that $900 becomes a lot more impactful to your overall income.”

Birt added that he thought the way parking passes are charged to employees — taking monthly payments out of their paychecks — obscures the actual impact of the expense.

“They take the $920 out of your paycheck just like healthcare or social security, where they’re taking $75 or whatever every month that you don’t really notice,” Birt said. “I think if you actually had to pay that cost up front, or if you had to write a check for $75 to WashU every month, it would start to bother people more.” 

Dr. Anna “Dr. G” Gonzalez, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, wrote in an email to Student Life that her experience parking on campus was the same as any other University community member’s. 

“I pay for parking and yes, at times, I too have a hard time finding parking depending on days and times.” she wrote. “I used to purchase a yellow pass, but for healthy excellence reasons, I am now walking to campus with the option of purchasing a day pass if needed.”

The East End garage holds a row of reserved parking spots for some faculty: two spots for the Chancellor, one for the Provost, one for the Executive Vice Chancellor of Administration, one for the Board Secretary, and one for the Executive Vice Chancellor of University Advancement. There are also five other reserved spots for guests to the Chancellor’s Suite.

Birt said that he doesn’t think WashU should require employees to pay for their parking at all. 

“It’s a little tacky of WashU as an employer to charge their employees for the privilege of parking on campus.”