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Parking assignments on North Campus will continue to change in the foreseeable future as construction projects and evolving needs of faculty, staff and visitors impact the area.

With the upcoming construction of the Walgreen Drama Center on the site of the current Pierpont Commons parking lot (NC27), only 125 spaces will be available during the two-year building effort. All of these spaces will be designated for visitor parking.

To address some of the lost parking in NC27, about 65 parallel parking spaces will be established along Bonisteel Boulevard. During daytime hours, the spaces will be designated for blue permits, but will be available for visitor use at night and on weekends.

“We currently have excess parking capacity for staff on North Campus,” says Dave Miller, director of Parking and Transportation Services. “In January, we counted 220 vacancies in blue permit lots and 100 vacancies in yellow permit lots. As a result, during the next two years, we’ll reallocate some of the needed visitor parking spaces into the other North Campus lots.”

University administrators continue to urge staff, faculty and students to explore alternate forms of transportation, including van pools, subsidized by U-M, and buses.

“We’d like everyone to consider riding Ann Arbor Transit Authority (AATA) and U-M buses to reduce the congestion throughout campus and especially on the North Campus,” Miller says. “Last fall we added additional Northwood and Bursley-Baits buses on North Campus, thus providing five-minute service to the residence halls and Pierpont Commons. Additionally, in January the AATA enhanced its bus service to North Campus.”

Two parking lots—NC8 by the School of Information and NC48 on Hayward—were expanded by 167 spaces for blue parking permits during the past two summers.

When the Computer Science and Engineering building is complete in early 2006, an additional 30 spaces will be recovered in NC48. The following fall, the lot east of the Space Research Building on Draper, which currently is used for contractor parking, will be converted to 135 spaces for staff permit parking.