Let's Talk UNLV

0:00:00
Welcome to another segment of Let's Talk UNRV on KUNRV. You're with co-hosts Keith and Renee. Renee, how was your weekend?

0:00:15
Oh, it was great. I got in my exercise, went to do some shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond.

0:00:21
You're getting your Z in.

0:00:24
That's right.

0:00:25
You're really relaxing. I want to you know do little changes to the bathroom, little changes to the bedroom. You know my spot, my little sanctuary, right? Right. What about you?

0:00:35
Well, I think I've been watching a little bit too much HGTV over the weekend. I ended up going taking like 10 trips it felt like to Home Depot and Lowe's. You know you go to the, you start a project, you go, you get the paint, you come home, like oh I don't have the brushes, I don't have this, you got to go back and so it felt like it took me, I spent more time going back and forth to Home Depot and Lowe's and then coming home actually doing the paint project. But I got the painting done and guess what? What will happen? Don't like the paint so guess what? I got to go back and redo it. But they don't give you like some samples or? Well you know I skipped that step. And my wife wasn't happy. She's like there lies the problem. Right, there lies the problem. You know, she's like, see, you were supposed to bring samples and put it on the wall. But, you know, I skipped that step.

0:01:22
I think you just want to go back to Lowe's. I think that's what it is.

0:01:25
No good deed goes unpunished.

0:01:26
You just want to go back and do more shopping.

0:01:30
Yeah, but that was entertaining. But I'm excited to sort of do this segment because one of the things that we hear a lot of feedback from the campus community is just about parking and parking services and all the things that are associated with that. So I'm glad that we have Mike Lawrence, who's the Associate Vice President for Administration and Business Affairs. And then we also have Tad McDowell, who's Director of Business Affairs, Parking and Transportation Services. Mike and Tad, welcome to the show.

0:01:59
Good morning. Morning, Keith, thank you for having us.

0:02:03
Great. Thank you. And we'll probably start with this initial question, and maybe, Mike and Tad, if you could just maybe separately share sort of what's in your portfolio of responsibility to get us started.

0:02:12
Sure. Again, this is Mike Lawrence, Associate Vice President for Administration at UNLV. I'm responsible for parking. I'm also responsible for risk management and safety, delivery services, which is like the logistics arms of the university, mail, shipping, receiving, moving services, surplus property, and I also oversee voice communications, which is telecommunications on campus. And this is Tad. We basically are in charge of maintaining all the parking lots, making sure that people park where they're supposed to be. We do that through permits. have operations that lead to future development, and just make sure the day-to-day operations go smoothly.

0:02:55
Again, so welcome to Let's Talk UNLV.

0:02:59
Question, so how do you balance the needs between faculty, staff, and students? That's one thing that we all need is parking for those that are coming to work, that are coming to take classes. And so what is your process of figuring out how to balance all those needs for these very important stakeholders?

0:03:21
Basically, we do open space counts throughout the year to make sure that we're meeting the needs of each segment of our community. And where we see that we have deficiencies in certain areas, we will reallocate those spaces to from staff to student or student to staff and put in meters where we need to and just make sure that the campus is basically balanced as far as the demands are concerned. And then Tad, could you for us

0:03:54
who may be less familiar with sort of that approach, would you talk a little bit about or maybe define what you mean when you say open space count?

0:04:01
Well, each fall, about approximately the second week of classes and the first week, we go out and we count every single open space in every single parking lot and make notations of that to see exactly what the demand is. And then we do that again the latter part of the semester and then again in the spring semester.

0:04:23
And so I'm curious, how has parking on this campus changed over the years? Do you see more spaces, less spaces, and then how are you able to balance that need maybe differently as the campus has grown over the years?

0:04:39
Great question, Renee, thank you. I will start and then Tad can fill in the blanks. The number of spaces has grown, but not through development, at least the last 10 years or so, other than constructing the last Tropicana garage. We've looked to maximize the spaces in our existing land. So we've redesigned parking lots and restriped them and tried to get as much value out of those lots

0:05:06
as we could.

0:05:07
That does two things. It helps us be as efficient as possible, but also keeps our permit amounts down. And if Tad has anything to add.

0:05:15
Just to add on to that, as far as the demand and supply is concerned, that alternates throughout over the years. Each year, if enrollment increases, then that increases demand and we don't foresee in the future for that to slow down much except for this period of time that we've been going through. And we've gotta always be ready to meet that demand. It's interesting that, for instance, the Cottage Grove garage, the Tropicana garage, they fill up pretty much the same times every year, but there has been times when one garage, for instance, Cottage Grove, has not filled up, and we want to tell everybody that the university garage has yet to fill up, to the most part.

0:06:08
So of all the garages, which is the most coveted?

0:06:13
Tropicana.

0:06:14
Tropicana, okay.

0:06:16
And then, Mike, I know you mentioned that risk management sort of falls in your portfolio, and could you speak to maybe related to parking, how risk may manifest in sort of the parking services spaces?

0:06:33
Well, I think there's a lot that goes on there. One of our biggest things in risk management that we like to look out for is accidents, whether the accidents occur on campus or whether the person is driving a state vehicle. And so from a parking perspective and a risk perspective, we look to reduce the number of pedestrian and vehicle conflicts. We look to make sure that where students are crossing, there's not as much traffic as possible. So when opportunities come for us to redesign and clean up some of those intersections, that's kind of where you'll see the intersect with those two

0:07:09
disciplines. I know that you also offer some services. I mean, I've seen potentially if people get stalled or people are needing some other assistance, maybe think about sharing some of those services that you share that helps the community when they're in the parking lot and maybe having dealt with some difficulty.

0:07:35
Yes, we have a motorist assistance program that we've had for quite some time. We used to do lockouts, but due to liability reasons, we had to stop doing those.

0:07:45
But we still do jump starts and tire inflation.

0:07:48
I've benefited from those services. So thank you. Thank you. Don't discontinue those.

0:07:53
So is that just for anyone? So if I'm a guest of the campus and I was just running in to get my meal or I wanted to go to the U.S. Bank and for some reason my car shuts down, would I be able to access those services or that's just for faculty, staff, and students?

0:08:14
No, we will help anybody that's on our campus that has those issues.

0:08:19
Great. And then also, could you speak to the relationship between or the services around, you know, because I know proximity, we talked about like where parking access is located, but could you speak to maybe from a safety standpoint, like in the evenings and nights when, you know, students and staff are, you know, or transitioning from buildings to the parking lots at night or what support, if any, you provide in those spaces or does that responsibility lie somewhere else?

0:08:50
Keith, that's actually a really great question. There's a couple of things that we ask students to do. The first and foremost is to download the Rebel Safe app. That app will help them have a direct contact to the UNLV Police Dispatch. There's also an option on that app to have a walk with me. So if a student doesn't necessarily feel safe, then a person, a friend can watch their travel as they travel across the parking lot and make sure they made it to their car leaving their vehicle safely. We do have emergency phones located throughout the campus, several in the garages, new emergency phones go across campus. Parking was one of the key players in that project. And then also police services does offer safety escorts. It's a student program where students are trained and paid by police services, but they will escort students across campus if there's an incident where they don't feel safe.

0:09:43
Wow, that's really good to know that we have these services in place. Let's segue to some of your recently completed projects and then talk about what made these projects specifically the ones that you wanted to address at this time. Was there a history that these were unmet needs, or were they just projects that, for safety reasons, you chose to target? But let's talk about your recently completed projects.

0:10:17
That sounds great.

0:10:18
Thank you.

0:10:19
One of the big ones that we want to highlight, and we have been highlighting, is the Cottage Grove realignment project. For those of you who have been on campus for quite some time, the Cottage Grove parking garage is a fairly large facility, larger than the other garages on campus, and during peak times, getting in and out of the garage would take an extended period of time. And part of that was because the light at Cottage Grove in Maryland wasn't as efficient as possible. And so parking actually commissioned a study, a traffic study, to identify what options existed. And one of those was to realign that intersection and make it more easy for vehicles to get in and out. During peak times before the Cottage Grove realignment, it would take anywhere between three to six minutes to exit the garage. Once the garage, or once that project was completed, it takes about one and a half minutes to leave the garage. So when you think 2,500 students or 2,500 vehicles, that's saving 1.5 minutes each. That's a significant time savings for our campus constituents.

0:11:27
And then there's also some other projects, Shadow Lane and the parking lot and garage maintenance?

0:11:34
Yes.

0:11:35
Previous to my earlier comment about maximizing our space, the shadow lane east lot is mostly used for dental patients and faculty staff at the dental school. However, we were able to redesign the lot by removing some of the landscaping and maximizing the existing land. We ended up increasing the size of that lot by 140 parking spaces. Again, it was a project that we looked to maximize what possible to keep our permit fees low and capitalize on our existing land without development. And then more recently, the parking garage, parking lot and garage maintenance project was completed. Tad's more familiar with that, so I would like him to weigh in on that one. Yeah, basically our parking maintenance includes striping of the spaces, crack sealing of the asphalt, and in some cases a seal coating over the asphalt. We did about 40% of all the parking lots last summer, and we're now on pretty much a two-year rotation for this type of maintenance. And I could go through all the

0:12:45
lots that we did. I don't think you want to know all those at this time, but we've got quite a bit done in the last two years.

0:12:54
Great. Could you talk a little bit about some of the projects that are in process?

0:13:01
That sounds great. The first, the big one that I think most folks should be aware of, because there might be seeing some construction soon, is the Tropicana garage expansion, as Tad alluded to earlier, that is a garage that fills up quickly and we are looking to build phase two of that garage. We received approval from the Board of Regents in December to repurpose some bond financing from another project and we are currently in the RFP process to identify a vendor and begin construction. We expect construction on that project to start in the spring of this year.

0:13:38
And have you determined about how many, what the change in the parking will be at the conclusion of that project? Well, I think there's a lot of impact there, Keith.

0:13:50
What I would say is that we're planning on about 770 increased spaces in that lot. Wow. The facility itself is 1,000 spaces, but you lose some spaces from the footprint. And there are some other projects in the area that may cause us to lose spaces as well. So 770 is the net impact or the net gain from that construction.

0:14:14
Are there other projects that you want to share? Maybe like the bike share, RFP, and infrastructure enhancements?

0:14:21
Sure.

0:14:22
I will actually turn that one over to Tad. He's definitely been running point on that and very familiar.

0:14:29
Actually, with Bike Share, we've been working on an RFP for that, which would lead to possibly multiple vendors on campus, which with bike and scooter. We're still, even though we're getting ready to put out an RFP, we're still doing some review of the whole process and make sure that it fits with everything that the university needs. But there's a lot of bike improvements we'd like to make along with some other things that leads us into various fees that we'd like to implement.

0:15:09
Let's talk about ticketing. How does ticketing work?

0:15:15
Well, it's pretty simple. And how can I get mine abated? I don't have any wink wink. Yeah, well, first of all, you need a permit to park on campus. Okay. Everybody has to pay to park on campus, otherwise we wouldn't be able to do what we do. and if there are those individuals that choose not to buy a permit or pay a meter or what have you and in that the result of that will be them getting receiving a citation and unfortunately some people don't pay those citations and then we have to go out and and do booting and such and that's us trying to do a good thing turns into a bad thing. So that's where we get most of our criticism. Well I appreciate that the

0:16:12
start of the year there's a grace period. Yes. So I've been on that side of grace where I've been able to go and rectify my need to have my parking permit updated. And so should that process unfold again for 2021 spring semester as we reopen or how are you handling parking and people getting their parking permit updated? What we usually do is we'll start our permit

0:16:43
sales a couple weeks early before the beginning of a semester and for instance, in August, we start as early as August 1st. And so in that case, you know, sometimes three weeks. And then the week right before the week of classes, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, it's more of a we try to work with everybody and get everybody in to get their permits done. And then at the end of the week, we do warnings, and then we start citing the next week.

0:17:15
And then, Tad, could you talk a little bit about, I know that we've launched the POT project now, we're doing the vaccinations. Could you speak to how the parking works for that initiative? Since it's projected that that may occur for a few months.

0:17:34
It started off with the testing over at the, and it was at the Tropicana parking garage. And pretty much we provide the space and let the, in that case it was the National Guard and the health department officials operate the site, of course. And in all the cases we were just providing the space for them to do that. So in no way do we want to take any credit for the actual event. But then it was moved over, the testing was moved over to the Thomas and Mack pavilion and now the vaccination, well then it was moved over to Stan Fulton and the vaccinations

0:18:16
started on Monday the 11th that we're providing space for in front of FDH. Now a little birdie told me that we converted one of our parking lot spaces to host an event for now Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

0:18:37
Is that true?

0:18:39
Yes, we were asked to provide some spaces in lot O, which is on the north side of campus, and it was for a parking lot, one of the parking lot events that they held. And here again, we provided the space and helped accommodate that, provided some support. But other than that, it was more of a space provision.

0:19:03
But, I mean,

0:19:04
talk to me about how that makes you feel to be a part of such, you know, history-making, life-changing events. You're part of this pod process of getting our health care workers and first-line responders vaccinated through your services, and then also to get the word out, regardless of what side the owl people are on, but just to understand what their options are in terms of the electorate. I mean, are there other projects like that that you've been a part of that we wouldn't know about that really enhances your your visibility and your role in providing a host of services?

0:19:42
Well, I think Mike might want to talk a little bit about that, too. But not only did we deal with that one event, which was actually small compared to the 2016 final debate, presidential debate that was held on the campus. And that was probably the most major thing that we had to work with. Mike, did you want to say something about that?

0:20:06
I was going to say, Parking Action does about 1,400 events annually. Wow. And these events actually happen all the time. As you said, we're happy to work with anybody who's interested in space. We set up parking spaces for the Board of Regents meetings whenever those come. We're very adept at dealing with the VIPs. However, we're also very careful not to displace our student traffic whenever possible. The permit holders do pay, and we do our best not to impact them. Unless it is some event like that that is coming from a higher level, we do put our permit holders first and foremost. And I think that's important to be said because I know oftentimes events can disrupt people's behavior patterns when they're looking for a parking space. But I can tell you in every meeting I go to, Tad is always the first to say, we don't want to move our permit holders.

0:21:01
And we're very-

0:21:02
Thank you, Tad.

0:21:03
... talking about that.

0:21:04
And so do you find that because-

0:21:07
Go ahead, Tad.

0:21:08
Oh, I was just going to add on to the fact that we have major events, for instance, like NFR, basketball, those type of things that impact the southwest side of campus, but there's been no time, even though the perception has been there, that we have displaced, gotten to the point to where there was not any parking available. And also, we hold the Tropicana parking garage for our student permit holders during those large events.

0:21:36
So do you find that the physicality or location of our campus is a barrier to parking or it creates some challenges, nuances, or even some benefits? I can imagine with Tropicana, Maryland, some of the busiest streets ever, you know, in Las Vegas, there's some different things that you have to come to think about than maybe University of Nevada Reno or some of our campuses or Nevada State. So, you know, are there some differences there that you have to look at because we're smack dab right in the city?

0:22:16
Oh, that's a loaded question. I think there are differences. I think us being relatively landlocked and having you know a lot of development inhibits our ability to to grow and expand the footprint of the campus so we are to the point that we have to maybe do developments with parking garages which is more costly that is part of what we face and then also our proximity to the airport there's been potential impacts for the elevated expressway which is now known as the diverging diamond interchange which is the county's project to help fast-track airport traffic to the strip for tourists so when they arrive in Las Vegas we can get them to the resort corridor as quickly as possible. So there's some impacts there and then of course as Tad said the events. I think every parking department is unique and different on every campus, and Tad definitely probably has more experience on that. But definitely not having the ability to expand our footprint does make it a challenge, especially when a lot of the development around the campus is relatively new and would be very costly for the university to acquire and just turn into parking.

0:23:32
And then we'll get you out here on this last question. Is there anything that we didn't ask or you haven't had a chance to share for those, for the audience who will be listening that you would like for them to know about parking services?

0:23:45
Thank you, Keith. There is one thing I think is always important to mention is that we do have a university parking advisory committee. Membership from the committee consists of all areas across campus, students, faculty, staff. And the committee meets four times a semester. And if there's any information or folks are interested in joining the committee, they can speak to their shared governance representatives from their area. And we're always accepting new members on the Parking Advisory Committee, and we'd love to have them.

0:24:16
Anything from your side, Tad, that you would like to share?

0:24:19
I think that pretty much wraps it up. I do want to mention, though, we went through a pretty extensive parking campus master plan that resulted in a lot of good recommendations and

0:24:29
we're working on those right now. All right, Rene, this is very informative. You know, I've been on campus as a student and professional for 20 plus years and I just didn't realize how comprehensive all the work that goes into parking services and so this is very educational for me. What were some of your key takeaways?

0:24:55
Well, definitely the 1,400 events that are offered annually. I just named a couple that come to my mind and came up in my inbox. But just to know that that's really the extent of the kind of services they're offering, all of the different safety features and services they're offering to keep our campus safe, but to also make sure that users and our guests can receive assistance if their car fails or if they need a jump or if they need some other type of assistance. And then I would also say just the ongoing completion of projects that have to happen, as well as the project-run process. I had no idea that there was this open space counting process that occurs. And so that was also interesting to hear about.

0:25:45
Yes.

0:25:47
And in addition to what you said, some takeaways for me, you know, I was disappointed to learn that I can't get a parking spot right in front of the building I work in, but, you know, that aside, I know that there are some cost constraints that wouldn't allow that. But just how thoughtful that Mike and Tad shared they are in assessing the needs of the campus community regarding parking and related functions against cost, really keeping it affordable for fees. And I think also being very mindful about when we do have external events occurring, trying to minimize the impact on the university community?

0:26:28
We are able to take what would take about what, three to six minutes to exit a garage facility down to one and a half minutes. If you think about how much time you're spending, you're not able to get home to your loved one, you have to stop at the grocery store to get your dinner.

0:26:43
Come back to home, D point loads.

0:26:45
That's right. The students that are trying to juggle between getting in time and end out for that test, as well as to get back home and study. I mean, all those minutes really do add up. It's know that we're making those conscious decisions to reduce that time, as well as the traffic that could also lead to accidents and all kinds of things that are just unpleasant. So it was really eye-opening to hear about the range of services and ways that they provide assistance to our entire campus?

0:27:16
Yes, because you know, through the assessments that we do through Campus Life and Student Affairs, you know, parking is one of those things that always shows up in recommendations. And I think it's definitely great to be able to share with the university community all these improvements that are underway through all the things that Mike and Tad shared, like you said, with improving the flow of traffic in and out, just increasing parking spaces, the two-year refresh plan that we're doing. So all those things I think certainly significantly and directly contribute to improving the student experience in terms of parking. So Tad, Mike, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing all the wonderful things that are occurring within parking services. that are occurring within parking services.

0:28:01
Thank you both.

Transcribed with Cockatoo