An open forum meeting was held Wednesday, where students, faculty, and staff members from MU were able to raise questions about the current parking and transportation services on campus.
Parking has become a major issue with students, faculty, and staff members, and the MU Parking and Transportation Services offices are looking to fix that. MU has reached out to Walker Parking Consultants to help create a master plan on improving the parking and transportation services provided on campus.
So far, MU and Walker Parking have been sending out surveys to all students, faculty, and staff members currently at Mizzou. They have generated over 9,000 responses, with 49 percent of that coming from staff members. Only 11 percent of the total student body has responded, but MU plans on sending out more emails in the coming weeks to get people to fill them out.
“Today is a little more of a qualitative look,” Walker Parking Consultants representative David Lieb said. “We’ve had some focus groups over the past couple of days and this open community forum is an opportunity for people to let us know what we should be looking at over the next few months.”
Questions about costs, alternative transportation, and the relationship between the city of Columbia and campus with their public transportation were all brought up by attendees.
“Walker, being the consulting firm for many, many years doing this kind of work on Universities campuses, will address the issues as they’re presented by faculty, staff, and students and determine what we need to do, not only in the present, but in the future,” MU Director of Parking and Transportation Services Mike Sokoff said.
MU hopes to have a plan in place by May.