Master Plan October 2011 - Pacific Lutheran University

TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT PLAN
week and the second during Spring Break week. In October 2006, data were collected at 10:00
A.M. and 2:00 P.M. Data were collected for three time periods in March 2007—10:00 A.M., 2:00
P.M. and 6:00 P.M.
For the parking lots, actual parking spaces and parked cars were counted. The counts included
all types of users, including fleet vehicles, motorcycles and vehicles with placards for the
disabled. For the on-street parking supply, PLU estimated capacity by counting the number of
cars parked on the street, then estimating how many additional cars could be accommodated
along that street.
Parking Analysis Results
The data from October and the regular school week in March were averaged. Total parking
utilization demand for each lot was then compared to the supply for those lots. Campus-wide,
the peak parking utilization rate of 81% occurred at 10:00 A.M. The demand at 2:00 P.M. was
almost as high, with an overall utilization rate of 79%. Table 1 presents the result of the parking
lot counts and includes the average utilization of each lot as well as the total utilization for the
campus.
For comparison, parking demand counts performed in 1999 as part of a campus-wide parking
utilization study found on-campus parking was about 74% utilized in the morning and afternoon.
The increase in on-campus parking utilization rates appears to be mostly related to the new
Morken Center, which located several popular programs to the new lower-campus building
where on-campus lots were previously underutilized. In 1999, there were typically about 200
on-campus spaces available in two lower campus lots. By 2007, the available spaces in these lots
dropped to about 100 spaces.
November 2011
Figure 1 graphically depicts peak parking lot utilization during the peak time observed—10:00
A.M. Color coding was used to easily identify areas of high parking utilization versus areas with
lower utilization rates.
Table 2 presents the result of the on-street parking counts and includes the average utilization
of street segment as well as the total utilization for the entire study area. Overall, on-street
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Pacific Lutheran University MIMP