Fast change: OSU-Cascades slashes on-campus parking fee

OSU-Cascades cut its on-campus parking fee by more than half, to $2 a day on Thursday in a bid to convince more students to park there and not crowd Southwest Chandler Avenue and other nearby streets.

The streets and some business parking lots had been filled with cars since classes began recently.

Kristi Russ, an instructor at Premier Aesthetics Institute, said Wednesday the parking problem began when the university started last week.

“The traffic has definitely increased since they’ve started their semester,” Russ said Wednesday.

She said the cars line up on the street throughout the day — and it doesn’t stop.

She’s also noticed many cars speeding down the road and almost causing crashes.

OSU Cascades student Jennifer Hall takes advantage of the free parking, rather than have to pay to park on campus.

Hall said parking on Chandler Avenue makes it convenient for her to get to class.

The university was charging students $5 a day to park in the parking lot on the new campus. Hall said she can’t afford paying that amount on a daily basis.

“I just don’t think that we should be paying that much for parking, considering how much we’re paying for tuition,” she said.

Bend police told NewsChannel 21 it’s legal for anyone to park on the side of the street.

The school had said it would adjust things as the parking situation unfolded, and did so quickly on Thursday after a spotlight was shone on the issue.

“We instituted the $2 a day fee today,” said Christine Coffin, the school’s director of communications and outreach,

OSU Cascades Associate Vice President of Finance & Strategic Planning Kelly Sparks said the university is offering students several other options to get to and from campus.

Sparks said the off-campus parking lot on Simpson Avenue is free to students to park their vehicles, with a shuttle to the nearby campus

Students can also use their OSU-Cascades student ID card to get a free bus ride to and from campus and all around the city of Bend.

Sparks said over 100 students have signed up to participate in their commuter program, which will give students reward points to use other ways of transportation to get to campus, besides using their car.

The university also is working with nearby businesses, encouraging them to put up customer-only parking signs in their parking lot.

But the problem isn’t expected to ease up as new students plan to move into their new dorms in January.