Parking and Transportation Services will meet with the administrative council March 9 to propose an increase in parking fees for the next academic school year. 

Jennifer Tougas, director of PTS, said there hasn’t been a parking permit fee increase since the 2008 to 2009 fiscal year.

Last semester, changes were made to the parking situation at WKU, such as the addition of housing premium and non-premium parking permits and a limit on how many commuter permits would be sold this year, Tougas said. 

“This was the first year there were two different housing parking permits,” Tougas said. “We did this in hopes that more students would leave their cars home.”

More students brought their cars to campus this year, which wasn’t expected. PTS believed the incentive to increase parking permit prices would prompt more students to leave their cars at home, Tougas said.

However, students like Louisville freshman Lanisha Hambric said leaving cars at home isn’t an option for some.

“People need their cars to get to and from off-campus jobs, and all students don’t have family that can pick them up from campus, so increasing the price is like a form of punishment to those students, in my opinion,” she said.

One reason for the addition of non-premium and premium permits this year was due to the changes made to the Topper Transit services, which included expanded services on the Green Line, which takes students to various shopping destinations around Bowling Green.

Next week’s proposed increases would boost commuter passes by about 10 percent, making them $100, and would raise housing permits by about 20 percent, making premium passes $220 and non-premium passes $110. 

Currently, commuter permits cost $90, premium housing permits cost $180, and non-premium housing permits cost $90.

“This is a congestion price model, where we are trying to reduce parking demand in the most congested areas by raising permit prices,” Tougas said.