Went around the Maryland Parkway corridor in front of UNLV Sunday, to see what there is to see. What I saw was parking lots! And a new parking garage! Here is the front of the school:

And the new garage:

Peachy keen, the first thing people notice about the university is the impenetrable gravel and concrete moat.

A 2007 survey asked students about parking – only a handful mentioned better alternative transportation. But the questions were very much skewed to get student thinking about how bad parking is.

Instead of asking – how would you PREFER to get to school or WHERE on campus do you frequent the most, they asked “Where would you like better parking?”

The numbers are also highly skewed towards faculty and staff – about 53% faculty and staff in the study. Um, hello? There are almost 27,000 students and only 46% of the respondents were students?

My conclusion – we can’t do anything with this study. The information gleaned can only be used to address faculty and staff parking needs. The university can’t make adequate decisions about parking and transportation policy unless a better sampling is taken.

Secondly – does the university really want to be encased in parking garages and lots? To the outsider, it doesn’t look so much like a university so much as a strip mall. Take a look at this screen shot from a map done by Mark Skinner called Walkable UNLV. Notice all those “P”s for Parking? And that’s not even all of them!

Related posts:

1. UNLV Transit Hub Study, Part 1 of 2 (potentially)
2. Stuff No One Really Advertises – UNLV Transit Study
3. Where Should Vegas Start?
4. UNLV Transit Hub Study, Part 2 of 2
5. ACE coming to UNLV?