It wasn’t your imagination.
Both Penn State and State College borough did adjust their parking operations last weekend, temporarily raising some rates in garage facilities, campus and borough representatives confirmed this week.
The weekend marked the fifth annual State Patty’s Day drinking holiday, bringing thousands of visitors to the region. That unsanctioned event was the primary reason why the borough altered its parking operations, according to municipal officials.
But on campus, State Patty’s Day was just one of several expected activities that together prompted the university to put larger-scale event-parking procedures into place, university spokeswoman Lisa Powers said.
Campus activities on the weekend included college recruitment events, a Hintz Family Alumni Center reception, a high school swim meet, Little Lion wrestling registration, a volleyball tournament, a Cafe Laura dinner, an indoor track meet and a gymnastics event.
‘We were trying to manage the parking to get everyone to the right location and also to ensure that people who live on campus could still park on campus,’ Powers wrote in an e-mail message. ‘In addition, it was important to make sure that those parking on campus were not put in an unsafe position (arguments over spots or having to park in distant places and walk to their campus residence or destination). I think that was accomplished successfully.’
From late Friday through late Saturday, the university charged a $10 event rate for visitor parking at facilities west of University Drive and $5 for parking in commuter lots, Powers said. Parking in the campus garages west of University Drive usually costs $1 an hour.
Powers said the extra parking revenue from the weekend will be used to cover staffing, additional bus hours, campus clean-up and perhaps police expenses, as well. (Penn State paid for extra CATA bus service over the weekend. The public transit authority reported having one of its busiest weekends on record.)
On the borough side of College Avenue, State College parking Manager Charles DeBow said public-garage rates were adjusted for the weekend to affect longer-term parking customers. Those who parked three hours or fewer paid the standard rate — 75 cents an hour — while those who stayed longer paid a higher rate for each additional hour: $1.75.
The change was in effect from midday Friday through midday Sunday. The borough also raised the maximum daily price for garage parking — from $16 to $26 — during that period.
DeBow said the reason for the temporary changes was two-fold: to try to manage the parking demand and encourage parking-stall turnover, and to recoup some cash to cover the borough’s State Patty’s-related expenses. Tallies of the extra revenue weren’t immediately available late this week.
‘Last year, we were completely overwhelmed in the parking garages starting on Friday around 8 p.m.’ on State Patty’s weekend, DeBow said.
As a result, he said, his office fielded numerous complaints last year from local downtown customers and employees who couldn’t get ample parking for their normal weekend routines.
By late this week, the parking office was still working through data to gauge the impact of the higher garage prices this time around. DeBow said the garages did reach capacity for portions of the weekend.
He said borough also upped its street-parking enforcement for the weekend, focusing largely on public-safety issues, such as vehicles blocking fire hydrants and crosswalks in residential areas.
Enforcement officers issued about 1,800 parking tickets between midday Friday and midday Sunday — some 800 more than what they would issue during a normal, non-event weekend, DeBow said.
Meanwhile, he said, officials are assembling a borough-wide impact report to delineate the financial effects of State Patty’s Day across all borough departments.
Earlier coverage
