MEMORANDUM

February 26, 2003

The MPC would like to thank the subcommittee for its recent motion (February 2003-attached) regarding parking and circulation issues on West Ridge (WR). We place great value on the subcommittee’s deliberations and recommendations and appreciate the serious work that you all are doing.

With this memo, we want to respond to the issues raised in the motion and offer some thoughts about how best to address them. As you know, we’ve proposed a joint discussion of the MPC and subcommittee members at our regular MPC meeting on March 6. We believe that meeting will offer us an opportunity to share ideas.

We agree fully with the spirit of the motion, which is to address pro-actively the temporary and longterm issues of West Ridge circulation and parking, including design of the West Ridge plaza (or ‘mall’). We believe such a strategy is now underway. As you know, Facilities Services (FS) is embarking on a program to identify alternatives for WR parking during construction, to minimize unnecessary disruption, and to provide timely information to the university community about these plans. Rick Caulfield and Steve Titus recently presented a Powerpoint slideshow about some of these ideas to Staff Council and at the recent meeting with Kittelson and Associates consultants that identify some of these alternatives. The concluding point is that all ideas and suggestions are welcome and should be directed to Mark Wohlford at Facilities Services.

In response to the specific points in your motion, we note that FS intends to expand parking west of the Arctic Health building and north of the USDA/Toolik staging area to accommodate some of the parking lost through construction elsewhere. Our sense is that there is insufficient space for new parking east of Arctic Health as your motion calls for. We trust that the new spaces envisioned by FS will begin to accommodate need for alternative parking.

We agree that expanded shuttle service to WR from elsewhere should be actively considered, as you suggest in paragraph two. FS has already identified this as one alternative that should be addressed. We will ask them to explore the concept of incentive pricing that you suggest.

The motion’s third paragraph addresses the future configuration of the WR plaza, including parking once the utilidor project is completed. The motion suggests that concern of the MPC about costs of winter maintenance is a major reason for removing parking from a reconstructed plaza. In truth, this is only a minor consideration. The master plan notes “the center of the West Ridge plaza should be redesigned, with parking redistributed, to create a central plaza” (p. 8-8). The MPC views this as an important expression of master plan goals one and four: create an efficient and attractive campus environment conducive to learning (1), and promoting safe and efficient travel throughout campus for pedestrians and non-motorized uses (4).

Exactly how these goals can best be accomplished in the WR plaza is open to discussion and new ideas. However, the MPC believes that any redesign should enhance the year-round attractiveness and safety of this heavily traveled area for pedestrians by reducing the impact of vehicular traffic and parking. We believe it should be made more attractive (using lighting, appropriate landscaping, and perhaps art-work) and more pedestrian-friendly. To the extent that longterm parking alternatives exist, the MPC believes that parking (and especially routine parking) should be located elsewhere.

We’ll be happy to share our thinking about these and other topics on March 6 and we look forward to further recommendations from you about circulation and parking issues on campus.

Attachment

University of Alaska Fairbanks
Tanana Valley Campus
PO Box 8040-UAF

Phone: +1 907 474 7920
Fax:    +1 907 474 6725
fndlm5@uaf.edu