Project Citizen

Running head: PARKING AND CONGESTION 1
Parking and Traffic Congestions at San Jose State University:
A Public Policy Issue
Lacey Chalenor, Anna Kingsmith, Sasha Martinez, and Kenneth Rosales
San Jose State University

PARKING AND CONGESTION 2
Parking and Congestion at San Jose State University:
A Public Policy Issue
As a new student to San Jose State University, one of the first things you are
likely to notice is the traffic on your way to school. It can often take upwards of 20
minutes to travel the four blocks from the exit off of I-280 South to campus. Once you
get there, finding parking can be yet another challenge. Talking to San Jose State
students, one hears horror stories of being an hour late to the first class of the term
because parking was so difficult to find. In short, the traffic and parking situation at SJSU
is having a significant negative impact on the lives of students, and therefore is an issue
that is in need of change.
Defining the Problem
Although the issues of traffic congestion and parking are inevitably intertwined,
they each have their own separate causal elements. Traffic congestion around San Jose
State is in part a factor of traffic congestion in the larger downtown San Jose area. For
many years now, San Jose has been listed in the Texas Transportation Institute’s Top 10
Worst American Cities for Traffic List (Texas A & M University). This statistic is based
in part on the average number of hours a driver in San Jose spends stuck in traffic each
year, but it focuses on freeway traffic. However, the traffic problems faced by students
are not limited to the time they spend on the freeway. In fact, for students who drive to
school around 9:00 am, the time when many morning classes begin, it can be even more
difficult to get from their freeway exit to campus.
The evidence of parking problems at SJSU is wide-ranging. A search of Spartan
Daily (the SJSU newspaper) articles on traffic revealed numerous articles from many

different years detailing the experiences of students who were late to class because they
couldn’t find a parking space and explaining the ongoing parking problems at the
university (Spartan Daily). In the comment section of one article, a user even mentioned
that the Spartan Daily ran those same articles when he went to school in the 1970s. A
search on Youtube with the term “SJSU Parking” turns up several pages of videos made
by students who are frustrated by the parking situation at San Jose State (Youtube).
Scope, Intensity, and Duration
Further evidence for the parking problems at SJSU turned up in a survey our
group conducted of 100 San Jose State students1. 12% of respondents who drive to school
reported spending 20 to 30 minutes looking for parking each day, while 9% reported
spending 30+ minutes. Students were also asked to rate their feelings about the parking
situation at SJSU on a scale of one to five, with one indicating “I don’t care” and five
indicating “I’m very frustrated”. Almost half of the students surveyed reported feeling
frustrated or very frustrated by the parking situation, and 19% fell into the “very
frustrated” category. This demonstrates that the issue of parking at SJSU has some
element of intensity. Because our survey was designed to incorporate an average cross-
section of SJSU students, the results also show that this issue has a wide scope in the
SJSU population.
The duration of the parking and traffic problem at SJSU is a little harder to prove,
because the nature of the institution is that most students leave after four or five years.
1 We wanted to account for the possibility that students with classes at different
times might have different experiences. In order to ensure that a wide variety of
students were surveyed, we split our sample of 100 into groups of 20, and each
group was conducted at a different time of day, ranging from 7:30 am to 7:30 pm.
See Appendix A for survey results.

However, in 1999 the Office of the President created a Parking, Traffic, and Transit
Advisory Committee to address the problems they were having in these areas. This
indicates that the problem has been going on for at least the previous decade, and likely
longer than that.
Why Is This a Public Policy Issue?
Having established that a problem indeed exists with the parking and traffic at
San Jose State, it is also important to establish that this problem is one that should be
addressed publicly rather than privately. According to Gerston’s Public Policymaking in
a Democratic Society: A Guide to Civic Engagement (2008), a public policy issue is a
question that “most people believe should be decided by officials at the appropriate level
of government” (p. 5). Issues of traffic and transit, from building roads, to creating public
transportation systems, to solving issues at problematic intersections, are typically dealt
with by public agencies. The majority of the public expects these issues to be dealt with
by officials in the government, and when they are not dealt with effectively, the public
often demonstrates their displeasure at election time.
In this case, the governmental body in question is San Jose State University. SJSU
is a public college, supported in part by funding from the state of California. The
university has established a precedent of dealing with issues of parking and transportation
around the university, as demonstrated by the creation of the Parking, Traffic, and Transit
Advisory Committee, the Transportation Solutions office, and the various partnerships
with transit authorities in the area2. The university has created policies in the past to deal
with parking on and transportation to campus, and therefore the public has a reasonable
2 These partnerships will be further discussed in the body of this paper.

expectation that they will address or decide future issues of parking on and transportation
to campus.
Furthermore, certain policies that have been created by the university in the past
have contributed to the parking and transit problems occurring now. For example, each
year the Office of SJSU Parking Services issues 13,000 parking passes, while only 5,500
parking spaces exist for students to use with these passes (SJSU Parking Services). Even
accounting for the differing schedules of many students, there is still a clear disparity
between the number of passes issued and the number of spaces available, which
contributes to the difficulty students have in finding a parking space in a timely fashion.
There are a few initiatives put in place by the university to encourage carpooling and use
of public transportation, but these are not well publicized. Therefore, they do not do
much to minimize the problem.
The evidence presented thus far has demonstrated that the parking and
transportation situation at San Jose State is having a significant negative impact on the
lives of students, shows scope, intensity, and duration, and is an issue of public policy
that the students of SJSU have a reasonable expectation for the university to address. As
will be discussed further in the body of this paper, our group also sees this as an
opportunity for the university to address a larger global issue. SJSU has demonstrated a
track record of environmental initiatives intended to reduce the school’s impact on the
environment, such as the Environmental Resource Center, SJSU Sustainability Week,
and their waste diversion program that includes recycling and composting 88.6% of
waste created on campus (SJSU Environmental Resource Center). Therefore, the bulk of
the solutions and proposal we will investigate in this paper are aimed towards the goal of

increasing sustainable transportation options for San Jose State students. By doing this,
the university would not only be addressing the current problems of parking and
transportation, they would also be investing in the sustainability of the university, which
is an appealing draw for many students, and also investing in the health of their students,
the city, and the environment in general.
How Have Other Public Agencies Addressed This Problem?
Parking and transit at universities is not a problem strictly limited to San Jose
State University. The problems of inadequate parking and limited public transportation
options are issues that plague many universities and urban cities. The fact that San Jose
State University is located in the heart of a bustling downtown area only seems to
exacerbate the problem.
In order to try to find solutions to our problem I have looked into what other
universities and urban cites have done. One of the problems that can cause parking
congestion is when there are more parking passes given out then there are available
spaces. This can lead to frustration and overcrowding when students are fighting for
parking spaces that will not accommodate all of them. This frustration is compounded by
the fact that parking permits are expensive, but even with all the money you pay for them
you are not guaranteed a parking spot.
Solutions at Other Universities
The following are examples of solutions that San Jose as well as other places
throughout the nation use and that may be options that we would like to use to solve our
parking issue. Many colleges have utilized parking garages like SJSU, but often they run
out of room to build and the only solution can be to build up. But how high is too high

and when does it become an issue of safety? Safety is not the only factor in building
more parking garages or adding levels to existing garages. The construction process can
be extremely expensive and take several years for completion. Many universities do not
have the money or time allotted to tackle such a project.
Limiting parking options.
Some universities have gone a completely different route and banned student
parking on campus. Columbia University in New York is one of the schools
implementing this no parking for students program. They do have a few exceptions, such
as offering parking for handicapped students and for night classes. Columbia began this
program because they have no room to accommodate the parking garages they would
need for staff as well as students, but some universities are implementing this program
for other reasons. Duke University in North Carolina prohibits student parking for
aesthetic reasons. They think parking garages would change the appearance of their
school and want campus grounds to look prestigious instead of overrun with giant
concrete structures. These schools suggest that students utilize on-street parking around
the campus, which can be a nuisance to neighbors of the university.
Incentives for alternative transportation use.
Many universities have offered incentives to those students who do not use
parking. Students who bike to school do not have to pay parking fees and are also given
free places to safely lock-up their bikes. University of New Hampshire has started a free
program called the “Cat Cycles”. With this program a student can check out a bike for up
to a week to ride around campus, which helps to discourage them from parking their
vehicle on campus property. At the University of California Santa Barbara they pride

themselves on being a green campus, which in turn is also a solution to campus parking
issues. One way they accomplish this is through the Transportation Alternatives Program
(TAP), which wants to make biking around campus a more comfortable and appealing
experience. They have safe bicycle lanes throughout campus as well as lockers provided
for those who need to store items.
Carpooling to school can also have benefits, not only for the environment but also
for students’ wallets. The University of Washington offers free parking to those who
carpool to school. It has decreased the amount of single-person parking permits by over
32% in the last ten years, which also reduces parking space congestion. It saves the
students who take advantage of the program $192 each quarter.
Off-site parking.
San Jose State, as well as Rice University in Texas, has off-site campus parking
lots with shuttles that run back and forth to various locations on campus. Rice seems to
have been very successful with this endeavor because they have more frequently running
shuttles. It has unfortunately been a complaint of some SJSU students that they have to
wait too long for the limited amount of shuttles available and many have deemed the off-
campus garages inefficient.
Solutions in Other Urban Areas
Using technology.
Some urban areas have come up with inventive solutions to parking problems,
which could benefit SJSU quite a bit since it could help the downtown area as well as the
college. Seattle has been using e-park to improve parking issues in their busier areas. E-
park “uses dynamic message signs to provide shoppers, visitors and tourists with real-

time space availability and direction from main access roads to available parking spaces”
(“Seattle.gov Department of Transportation,” 2010). The goal of these signs is to reduce
the time people spend circling for parking spots, as well as to improve the traffic
congestion.
San Jose and other urban areas are beginning to utilize parking web pages on the
Internet. These web pages can offer maps of the area and where all types of parking are
located, parking rates, and most importantly up to date information on parking garages.
For example, the San Jose Downtown Parking web page lets you move your mouse over
the map and click over parking garages and it will give you an up to date amount of
parking spaces available. Like the e-park system they are hoping this will reduce circling
and congestion as well as give people the option to take public transportation if the
parking is too impacted.
Payment methods.
One of the most common parking practices in cities and urban areas are parking
meters, pay stations, and parking garages. These are mainly designed for short-term
parking for those users who are running quick errands and not for those who live or work
in the area. Pay stations have been making these spots more accessible for all by
accepting currency in bill form as well as some that allow credit card use. Parking
garages are often a better choice for those people who need to park for longer amounts of
time or for daily use. You can often purchase monthly passes or put money on smart
cards to be used for long periods of time. By purchasing for longer time frames you will
save more money than if you pay daily. Businesses in urban areas will often provide
passes or smart cards for employees.

Shared parking.
Shared parking is another popular practice in busy areas. For example, parking
lots can share 50 spaces for a business that employees people over that amount, because
odds are that not every person will be there everyday. This lot can also share spaces with
businesses that run at a different set of hours like bars, theatres, or apartments whose
renters are often gone during the daytime hours. This can maximize the total use of the
lot and increase revenue to the city that is earned by a shared parking lot.
Urban planning for combined live-work spaces.
Urban areas that also provide different types of living structures like
condominiums, apartments, and houses also provide parking for these places. Often
times they have free parking spaces or lots, but as we are combining work and living
spaces we may run the risk of more congestion and less available parking. Although, if
someone lives and works in the downtown area they may be more apt to walk, bike, or
take public transportation to work or run errands. This also means they will not use
additional parking spaces other than their own, and for some living in urban areas, they
may not have a vehicle at all.
All of the universities and urban areas I looked into had some sort of public
transportation, but it may be costly for some or inconvenient to those who live in certain
areas. In the Bay Area we have our local bus and light-rail system that are run by the
VTA, as well as Caltrain, and BART. Even with all these options available they still may
be too pricey for some students to use or inconveniently located to where they live or
their travel destination.
Public Transportation Issues

The Eco-Pass
When we originally started thinking of solutions to our problem, we came up with
two possible options. One factor in the lack of parking is the low numbers of students
using public transportation. The Eco-Pass allows people to take the VTA buses and light
rail for free). So we thought that one thing that would help the parking problem at the
university would be to partially subsidize BART and Caltrain passes. That way students
traveling from far away would not have to drive to the university. Another option we
came up with was to build another parking garage. This would provide the University
with a lot more parking spots, increasing the chances for students to find parking.
Subsidizing BART
We decided to research and compare the options of parking garages vs. public
transportation and see which one, if any, would be best to solve our parking problem. We
started off by looking into subsidizing BART and Caltrain in a similar way to the current
Eco pass system. Unfortunately, when it came to BART a couple problems presented
themselves. First off, BART does not have monthly passes; their payment system is pay
as you go. “BART fares are set with a mileage-based formula, therefore time-based
passes (e.g., weekly or monthly) are not available” (bart.com). The amount one pays
depends on the distance one travels. In addition, BART does not currently come to San
Jose, which means that anyone taking BART will still have to go pretty far out of their
way to get from a BART station to the University. Until BART comes to San Jose, a
route addition that is planned for the future, subsidizing it doesn’t seem to be an effective
choice for solving the current problems at SJSU.
Subsidizing Caltrain

However, unlike BART, Caltrain does have passes that businesses and
universities can purchase. According to the Caltrain website, “The GO Pass program is
open to companies of any size. The total cost of participating in the 2011 GO Pass
program will be the greater of $155 per employee or $10,850. The cost is pro-rated if the
company joins the program for less than a full year” (Caltrain.com). The university has
about 30,000 students (sjsu.edu), which means that purchasing a GO Pass for every
student at the University would cost more than $4.5 million annually. This is a lot of
money to pay considering that not every student would need the GO Pass. Some students
would never need to take Caltrain, so it would not make sense for the university to pay
that much to subsidize it for every student. However, this does not mean that the
university should not subsidize it for those students who need it. This would make it
slightly different than the Eco-Pass in that the Eco-Pass applies to all students and this
would not. We suggest something along the lines of subsidizing the pass just for students
who need it. They could submit an application explaining that they need it. It would be
funded by an increase in student fees, or could be paid for by increasing the current price
for parking passes at San Jose State3. This would be much more effective and cost
efficient for the University.
Parking Garage Options
In relation to building another parking garage, there seemed to be quite a number
of complications. We researched how much it cost to build the 4th Street garage in
downtown San Jose in 2003. According to the fact sheet from the San Jose
3 As mentioned previously, we’ve chosen to discuss the costs of each of our
proposals in a separate section in the conclusion. This section will go into more
detail about how we would pay for our proposal.

Redevelopment Agency, the total cost for the project was $57.9 million
(SJRedevelopment.org). Although our garage would be different, the cost would
probably be about the same, if not more. Estimates of the cost would need to account for
the fact that there is currently no space for the university to build a parking garage. That
means it would not only have to pay to build the garage but to buy out land around San
Jose State. In addition, real estate prices for the land that would need to be purchased
have probably also gone up over time.
After learning this information, we thought one possibility might be to build up.
We figured this way we would not have to buy out other land but it would serve the same
purpose of building a new garage, providing more parking spaces. However, the problem
with this is that it is not very safe to continuously build up. In addition, both building a
new garage and building off of an existing one would cause more problems in regards to
pollution and traffic congestion.
We attempted to contact members of San Jose’s Redevelopment Agency, the
developer for the 4th Street garage. We contacted Richard Keit, head of Industrial
Development Opportunities, and Christine Velasquez, head of Downtown San Jose
Business Improvement Programs. We contacted them for advice on building a new
garage or the possibility of building on to an existing one and how much it would cost.
However, they did not respond to our emails until after we had already come to
conclusions on our own. The information they did give us only reiterated what we had
already figured out in our research— that building another garage would be far too
complicated to be beneficial. They also reinforced our original assumption that building

onto existing parking garages could pose a safety risk. Unfortunately, we were not able to
get a quote from them about their estimate of the potential costs of such an operation.
We tried contacting the parking services department for San Jose State to ask
them similar questions, but they never responded. Next we tried Calvin Worsnup, the
A.S. Director of Student Fee Affairs. We asked him for advice about which officials he
thought we could contact regarding these matters and he directed us to the Transportation
Solutions center on campus. However, the Transportation Solutions center was only able
to provide us with information about the current Eco-Pass. They told us what we already
knew, that the Eco-Pass was funded by student fees and provided free transportation for
students on all VTA buses and light rail. Considering the fact that all the experts we tried
to contact regarding this issue have failed to give us any valuable information in regards
to solving our problem, we decided to go with our best judgment about our options based
off of our own research.
After comparing all of our original options, none of them seemed as good as we
originally hoped. Building another garage would be too difficult, not to mention it would
not solve any short-term problems since it would take a while to build. Building on to an
existing garage would pose many of the same problems including the safety issue. Out of
the options that we researched, it seems that creating a system to subsidize Caltrain for
those students who specifically apply for the pass is the most feasible option.
Consulting the Experts
Transportation Demand Management
Our group has conducted several interviews and phone consultations with
professors from several universities and with a graduate student from San Jose State

University (SJSU) about SJSU’s parking issues and Transportation Demand Management
(TDM) systems. TDMs are policies to decrease car use and boost the practice of
alternative transportation such as carpooling, public transit, walking, and bicycling
(Freeman 2010). The first individual that our group interviewed was Dennis Freeman, an
Urban Planning graduate student from San Jose State University. Transportation
Engineer and Planning Professor Eduardo Serafin from San Jose State University and
Kenneth Sulzer from University of California of San Diego were then reached through
the telephone respectively. Rachel He is a PhD Transportation Network Modeling
Professor from Santa Clara University that also contributed in enhancing and compiling
our proposal. Dennis Freeman was the first scholar that we interviewed and questions
such as what TDM practices are best used in the United States, and in other universities
asked.
According to Dennis Freeman, the best TDM used in the United States is in New
York City’s subway transit system (2010). New York City charges only four dollars to
travel from Brooklyn to Manhattan and offers riders a three to four minute wait time
(Freeman 2010). Most importantly, Freeman argues, is that New York’s high population
density and its compact city structure is susceptible to drastic traffic congestion (2010).
Therefore, this TDM practice is feasible because there is a demand for it (Freeman 2010).
The demand for public transit has also increased parking prices to a level where there is
no point to drive if alternative transportation is much more cost-effective (Freeman
2010).
Ironically, Freeman pointed out, the City of San Jose does everything backwards
when compared to New York City (2010). San Jose is a widespread city with low

population density and has great highway systems with wide roads within the city, which
in turn make it easy to drive (Freeman 2010). Making the automobile more accessible,
San Jose’s parking comes cheap or even free in many areas such as in Santana Row and
on several curbside parking areas (Freeman 2010).
The Stanford Model
In contrast to San Jose’s parking codes and analogous to New York City’s TDM
approach, Stanford University in Palo Alto has carried out many successful strategies to
reduce their campus expansion and traffic congestion issues. Freeman states that Stanford
has the best transit system as a university in the whole country (2010). Stanford currently
charges their employees 726 dollars for parking permits on an annual basis for a type “A”
parking which is closest to campus. The other types, “B” and “C” are further away,
cheaper, and in high demand. Type “C” offers an annual parking permit of 282 dollars
(Freeman 2010). Daily passes for type “A” parking are 11 dollars and 4.50 dollars for
type “C”. In contrast, San Jose charges their employees only 81 dollars for semester
passes, or 162 dollars for the year (Freeman 2010).
Stanford University offers their employees a chance to join a commuter’s club
program called Clean Air Cash where they are forced to give up their parking permits, are
compensated 282 dollars, and are given cash rewards for proposing fellow staff and
faculty members to join. In the Clean Air Cash program, employees are awarded free
VTA Eco Passes and free Caltrain GO Passes, free rides on their local Marguerite Bus,
free reserved parking for carpool/vanpool, vanpool subsidies of up to 200 dollars a
month, Caltrain parking passes, zip-car credits, pretax payroll deductions for transit
passes, commuter checks, Enterprise Rent –A-Car vouchers, and daily parking vouchers

(Freeman 2010). Stanford’s Clean Air Cash program leads by example of great success.
Between the years 2002 and 2007, five years, driving to campus decreased by 28 percent
and the use of Caltrain increased 342 percent (Freeman 2010). However, students do not
have the option of joining the Clean Air Cash program (Freeman 2010).
By comparison, SJSU lacks in several details to Stanford’s program. For
examples, employees must purchase an eco pass for 25 dollars every semester that only
provides service from Santa Clara County’s Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)
(Freeman 2010). SJSU also offers a ride share program that allows employees and
students to carpool, a commuter check program that postpones employees up to 230
dollars a month to purchase public transportation tickets, and bicycle facilities (Freeman
2010).
Commuter Campuses
Subsequent to Freeman’s interview, we interviewed Eduardo Serafin through a
telephone consultation. Professor Serafin initiated the conversation by establishing that
SJSU is a commuter campus (2010). He recommended that students and employees
should park before peak hours. Typically, peak parking hours are between six through
eight in the morning and within four and six in the afternoon (Serafin 2010). To
encourage public transportation at San Jose State University (SJSU), the starting location
of a trip must be put into consideration because SJSU has a massive reach of students
(Serafin 2010). Origins of staff, faculty, and students are spread throughout 12 counties
surrounding Santa Clara County (Serafin 2010). Usually, the range of origins is about 50
miles (Serafin 2010). Therefore, many individuals at the peak of the 50 miles would have
to plan a two to three hour trip with three to four transfers of different transit systems and

modes (Serafin 2010). The inconvenience due to time, distance, hassles of transferring,
and the aggregation of costs makes public transportation an unsuitable way to get to
SJSU campus. In essence, transit needs are poorly met by transit itself (Serafin 2010).
On the contrary, once Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) connects to downtown
San Jose, then SJSU commuters’ transit behavior will drastically change. Unlike Caltrain,
BART provides services to the East Bay. Caltrain only provides services to San Francisco
County, San Mateo County, and Santa Clara County (Serafine 2010). As a result,
individuals who have trouble taking public transportation from the East Bay will no
longer have that problem once BART is connected to San Jose (Serafin 2010). Serafin
added that once BART is established in San Jose, SJSU must be active with San Jose in
planning by creating a shuttle service directly to SJSU because the last mile is the most
crucial moment of someone’s trip (Serafin 2010). However, the first mile is as important
because both are determining factors of how punctual someone will be (Serafin 2010).
Alternatively, Serafin also suggested a Zipcar strategy for bicycles. Like the
Zipcar, people would purchase a card that allows access to a bicycle at any public
transportation station (Serafin 2010). He stated that bicycles are essential for Caltrain
travelers because of wide spread and low population-density areas such as San Jose
(Serafin 2010). Serafin did not recommend carpooling for SJSU for the reason that
commuter schools like SJSU have people who have busy work schedules that conflict
with others. However, he did not state that it should not be available or encouraged.
Transportation Pricing
Kenneth Sulzer from University of California, San Diego was another professor
our group spoke with by means of the telephone. Sulzer touched on pricing, UCSD’s

Transportation Demand Management (TDM) practice, taxes, and public outreach. Sulzer
first started out with the topic of pricing. With pricing, he argued, one can be either
influenced or intimidated (2010). The most vital tool for parking is pricing (Sulzer 2010).
Since the issue of congestion is in parking garages at San Jose State University (SJSU),
Sulzer suggested to price people out of parking and to encourage peripheral parking lots
(park and ride) with a free internal SJSU bus system that runs on a frequent basis when
demand is at its peak, provides services throughout the day, and all days of the week
when classes are available (Sulzer 2010).
Sulzer spoke about University of California, San Diego’s transportation system.
He mentioned that year-long parking permits are extremely costly and that the pricing
mechanism depends on what is most convenient (Sulzer 2010). However, only 10 percent
of UCSD’s population makes up for public transit users (Sulzer 2010). The main reason
10% exists as public transit users is because UCSD has a subway system that stops
directly at UCSD making it substantially convenient (Sulzer 2010).
The main predicament of parking and traffic congestion is the vehicle. Kenneth
Sulzer pointed out that the cost of fuel is extremely cheap and the current gas tax level is
extensively low (Sulzer 2010). For over a decade, both state and federal gas taxes have
been 18 cents or 36 cents combined. For several regional areas, there is no sales tax for
gas, except in Santa Clara, but is cheap nonetheless (Sulzer 2010). Sulzer claimed that as
population increases, so does the demand for transportation, and therefore gas tax needs
to increase as well (Sulzer 2010). The gas tax money collected can then be funneled
directly into public transportation. Also, Sulzer stated that the United States does not

subsidize public transportation like several other countries such as Japan, England, and
China do (Sulzer 2010).
Solutions are not viable if it is not sold or demonstrated to the public. Kenneth
Sulzer strongly adhered to promote public outreach about transportation solutions
through SJSU student body (Sulzer 2010). The student body, Sulzer points out, must
communicate with the SJSU population to come up with the right resolutions because
they are the ones being affected after all. SJSU affiliated individuals are the demand
(Sulzer 2010).
Flexible Scheduling
Rachel He was the last professor our group interviewed in person. He touched on
TDM procedures such as flexible class scheduling and carpooling and vanpooling.
Professor He felt that since SJSU’s peak hours are known, then the scheduling of classes
could be spread out. For instance, since SJSU’s typical peak congestion hours are from
six to eight in the morning and four to six in the afternoon, then perhaps distributing more
classes to late afternoon and early evening would create a constant, smooth flow of
parking instead of individuals infiltrating the parking garages all at one time (He 2010).
He highly encourages carpools and vanpools because the United States travel
demand for low population density areas pushes for vehicle use. Consequently, High
Occupancy Vehicle Lanes (HOV) need to be implemented throughout all the areas that
SJSU associated individuals will encounter (He 2010). With HOV, a lane that is specially
designed to be separated from the rest of the conventional lanes is available for people
who have more than one individual in a vehicle to avoid any traffic (He 2010). HOV
lanes will work only if SJSU provides an incentive for carpooling and vanpooling (He

2010). He suggests that SJSU should provide immense discounts or even free parking for
carpoolers and vanpoolers; reminiscent to Stanford University’s practices (He 2010).
TDM at San Jose State
In terms of adopting Transportation Demand Management (TDM) practices for
San Jose State University (SJSU), it is vital to consider Stanford University as the main
option because of its great accomplishments. Stanford’s TDM Clean Air Cash program
included something that Professor Kenneth Sulzer from the University of California, San
Diego suggested and that is the manipulation of pricing. By increasing parking permits
prices at an astronomical level and offering free transit passes that included both Valley
Transportation Authority’s (VTA’s) Eco Pass and GO passes from Caltrain to their
employees, vehicle usage decreased at an alarming rate and Caltrain utilization increased
at an enormous figure in a matter of five short years. In addition, Stanford University
compensated their employees for joining the program and for recommending their
colleagues.
Stanford University also has a local Marguerite Bus that hauls students, staff, and
faculty in and out of campus, and to local public transportation stations. Caltrain parking
passes are issued to employees, zip-car credits are given to employees, and free
carpool/vanpool parking spaces are available at Stanford University due to
carpool/vanpool subsidies of up to 200 dollars a month. This proposal sounds costly, but
it is feasible with high demand of parking mixed in with demand mechanisms for pricing.
The substantial revenue obtained from parking permits can be transferred over to fund a
Clean Air Cash program for San Jose State University.

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) should not be taken out of consideration, for
when it arrives to Downtown San Jose, San Jose State University, the main actor of this
proposal, should work closely with the City of San Jose to have a shuttle program that
connects to campus. San Jose State is a commuter school and students and employees
come from all parts surrounding San Jose. BART serves all of the East Bay, San Mateo
County, and San Francisco County and for that reason, a transit pass that includes BART,
VTA, and Caltrain should be implemented to avoid increase in parking demand, parking
congestion, decrease in air quality, parking garage maintenance, and car dependency.
Free Carpool Parking
One part of our proposed solution would be to give students who carpool free
parking on campus. A carpool is defined as two or more persons driving together in a
privately owned vehicle. For those students who do not have any other option but to
drive to school this would help them save money, reduce their carbon footprint, and
hopefully allow them to be able to find easier parking by reducing congestion. If this
proposal is a success than it may mean less vehicles fighting for the limited 5,500 parking
spaces at San Jose State University. To be able to monitor the carpool parking and make
sure that every vehicle using it has 2 or more passengers, San Jose State University
(SJSU) has to hire parking attendants at the entrance to the designated carpool parking
area. In order to keep it contained they can begin by having the top floor of the South
garage as free carpool parking only. There must be at least two full time parking
attendants to monitor the entrance to this floor and enforce the two or more person a car
rule. If SJSU began with one floor of an existing parking garage, and hired two full time
attendants at minimum wage, then there would be a cost of roughly $30,000 a year.

Luckily, advertising this new parking incentive would be relatively free. The
majority of the advertising could be done over San Jose State’s web page as well as sent
out to each student through his or her MYSJSU email. There are free web pages such as
511.org that help match potential carpoolers with people that are going to the same
destination or live in the same area. SJSU could work with a free website like 511.org, or
create one to match potential carpooling students. This would keep promotion of the
carpool program free or at a very minimal cost, so allotted money could go to other areas
of the proposal that need it more. If the carpool incentive becomes more popular they
could look into making the top floor of other garages reserved for this type of parking and
hire more attendants.
The actor in this proposal will be San Jose State University and the model of
University of Washington’s subsidized parking for car and vanpools will be used. As
was mentioned earlier in the paper, University of Washington was able to reduce the
purchase of parking permits by 32% in ten years, also reducing parking lot congestion.
The aim is to force students at San Jose State to choose to carpool and get free parking
instead of buying costly single person parking permits. This will hopefully lower the
amount of vehicles that park on campus. San Jose State sells about 13,000 parking
permits each year, with 6,000 being semester permits. If it is feasible to reduce it by
30%, the amount of semester permits could decrease to about 4,200 students who use
non-carpool parking spaces. This coupled with our other proposed solutions could reduce
vehicle parking at SJSU even further. We will discuss financing the money for this and
the two other proposed solutions later in the paper.
Providing Incentives for Bike Commuters

Along with increasing incentives for carpooling, our group also proposes
developing incentives for bicycle commuting. While public transportation use and
carpooling both cut back on carbon emissions, commuting by bike produces zero
emissions, so the use of this mode of transportation should be encouraged. The
importance of providing incentives for bike commuting in any program to reduce carbon
emissions is just beginning to be understood. In 2009, a qualified bike commuting
reimbursement was added to the package of transportation fringe benefits that are
provided as part of the Renewable Energy Tax Credit that passed in 2008 (League of
American Bicyclists). This addition allows corporations to provide bike-commuting
employees with vouchers to cover the cost of a commuter bike and other expenses
associated with commuting by bicycle, and deduct the cost from their tax liability.
While this addition demonstrates that public awareness of the importance of bike
commuting is growing, it is not currently an option for universities who wish to take
advantage of it. As the University of California Office of the President explains, because
universities are not corporations, they have no tax liability from which to deduct the cost
of this benefit (Takemoto-Weerts, 2010). Therefore, if universities such as SJSU wanted
to implement such a program, they would have to fund it themselves. One potential
policy solution to this problem is introducing an amendment to the federal legislation that
would allow universities to take advantage of the benefits. In February of 2009,
Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced an amendment which would allow
employees of universities and other employers without tax liability to fund their bike
commuting costs through pre-tax income (LOAB). However, this bill was referred to
Ways and Means and no action has been taken on it since it was introduced. Although

this bill is at the federal level and so somewhat outside the scope of this project, it
remains an excellent policy proposal for incentivizing bicycle commuters.
The League of American Bicyclists (LOAB) has developed a tool for assessing
how bike-friendly communities and universities are. Currently, SJSU isn’t even ranked,
and the city of San Jose is very low in the rankings. This points to our next proposal: the
university should work with the city of San Jose to increase the area’s bike-friendliness.
LOAB bases their ratings on five categories: Engineering, Education, Encouragement,
Enforcement, and Evaluation. The only area for which the city of San Jose was
recognized was Engineering. This acknowledgement signifies that the city of San Jose
has a Bicycle Master Plan, which includes steps taken to accommodate bikes on public
roads, and there is decent connectivity between bike paths and lanes in order to navigate
San Jose. In the other four categories, San Jose is failing, which includes education
programs for cyclists, drivers, and traffic enforcement officers on cyclist rights and
responsibilities, events in the community to encourage cycling, Safe Routes to School
programs, availability of bike maps, evaluation metrics for the effectiveness of current
cycling programs, and more. There are a number of ways for the city of San Jose to
improve their bike-friendliness. One simple policy solution that has worked in other
communities (LOAB) is to include more information about cyclist safety and rights in the
state driver’s test. At the local level, training for law enforcement and traffic enforcement
officers should include information about the bike laws in the state and city, and the
rights and responsibilities of cyclists. All of these things make bike commuting safer,
which encourages a greater number of people to choose this option.

The same categories used to evaluate cities are used (in a slightly altered form) to
evaluate universities, and these provide some insight into steps the university could take.
Because SJSU already has a Transportation Solutions office that is tasked with increasing
use of alternative transportation among university students and employees, this office
would be the recommended actor for most of these policy suggestions. These suggestions
focus on slightly expanding the responsibilities of the Transportation Solutions office, but
probably not to the point of necessitating a new hire. The Transportation Solutions office
should work with the city of San Jose to create a bike map of the area for commuters to
use. This would not only give cyclists more information about the safe paths available to
them, but it would also highlight routes and neighborhoods that are lacking these safe
paths and potentially point the city towards areas where new bike lanes need to be
constructed. The Transportation Solutions office should also work with the campus police
to make sure that the bicycle lock-up units on campus are being routinely checked
throughout the school day4. Furthermore, SJSU could coordinate with bike clubs on
campus to improve the visibility of cycling in the campus culture, potentially through
events like a Bike to School Week.
Finally, there is one solution that comes up most frequently on listservs and
discussions about bicycle commuting (LOAB, bikeforums.net, bicyclecrazy.com, etc.).
They recommend having a facility on campus where bike commuters can shower, store
their clothing, and have access to other biking services and information. At San Jose
4 Incidentally, although San Jose State does provide four of these bicycle lock-up
units on campus to increase bicycle storage safety, the locks are often out of order.
In good weather, they are always full, along with the bike racks available, so
students are forced to lock their bikes to trees and lamp-posts, which is technically
grounds for having your bike impounded.

State, there is a wide range of possibilities for how this solution could manifest itself. At
the lower cost end, it could be as simple as giving qualified bike commuters free access
to a locker in the Event Center Health Club locker rooms, where they could shower upon
arriving at campus and store their belongings. If many bike commuters chose this option,
this could potentially necessitate expansion of the lockers available, but to begin with it
could rely largely on the facilities and resources already in place5.
If the adoption of this policy was successful, it could be expanded to building a
Bike Center on campus. This facility could include such things as lockers, showers, bike
storage, a place to buy bike accessories like locks and helmets, an on-site bike mechanic,
and bike rentals for students and staff of the university. This type of center has been
created at a number of universities throughout the country such as CSU Monterey Bay,
Michigan State University, and UC Santa Cruz6. At all of these universities, the bike
center is run through a committee like the Transportation Solutions at San Jose State
University, and is funded through fees similar to SJSU’s Associated Students Fees.
Transit Pass Voucher
Along with carpooling and bicycling solutions, public transportation is another
vital component in improving parking at SJSU. Therefore, building another parking
garage is not the best option to go with, but subsidizing for Bay Area Rapid Transit
(BART) and Caltrain for all students aren’t either. However, there is a solution that is a
5 The potential costs of this policy, although marginal, will be discussed at the end of
our section on policy proposals, as are all of the potential costs discussed in this
portion.
6 Information about the types of amenities offered at these centers was gathered
from the following websites: http://transportation.csumb.edu/biking;
http://bikes.msu.edu/; http://bikecoop.ucsc.edu

combination of these elements. The university could purchase Go Passes only for
students who need to take Caltrain. This would be cheaper because the amount of Go
Passes the University would have to buy would be greatly reduced. They can do this in
the same manner that they subsidize the Eco-Pass. In addition, the possible solution of
raising the cost of parking around campus can help to pay for this as well as our other
proposals. Students who need a GO Pass would submit an application to verify where
they live. This would help to bring down the amount of drivers trying to find parking at
SJSU and would therefore reduce traffic congestion.
In terms of adopting TDM practices at SJSU Stanford’s accomplishments are an
admirable model. Stanford’s Clean Air Cash program included something that Professor
Sulzer suggested: the manipulation of pricing. By increasing parking permit prices and
offering free transit passes that includes both the Eco Pass and GO passes from Caltrain
to their employees, vehicle usage decreased significantly and Caltrain utilization also
increased in a matter of five years. In addition, Stanford University compensated their
employees for joining the program and for recommending their colleagues.
Stanford also has a local bus that hauls students and staff in and out of campus
and to local public transportation stations. Caltrain parking passes and Zip-car credits are
given to employees, and free carpool parking spaces are available at Stanford due to
carpool/vanpool subsidies of up to 200 dollars a month. This proposal sounds costly, but
it is feasible with high demand of parking mixed in with demand mechanisms for pricing.
The substantial revenue obtained from parking permits can be transferred over to fund a
Clean Air Cash program for San Jose State University. However, subsidizing carpool/
vanpool is the most viable solution for SJSU.

BART must not be taken out of consideration, for when it arrives to Downtown
San Jose at some point in the future, SJSU must work closely with the City of San Jose to
have a shuttle program that connects to campus. Like Professor Serafin mentioned, San
Jose State is a commuter school and students and employees come from all parts
surrounding San Jose. BART serves all of the East Bay (Contra Costa County and
Alameda County), San Mateo County, and San Francisco County and for that reason, a
free transit pass that includes BART as well as VTA and Caltrain must be implemented
to avoid increase in parking demand, parking congestion, decrease in air quality, costs to
maintain parking garages, and automobile dependency.
Most importantly, San Jose State’s Associated Students should prioritize fixing
the issues of parking congestion by creating rewards (free transit passes) and deprivations
(increased parking permit prices) from its inputs of demand (less parking congestion) and
supports (public transportation services). Also, as Professor Sulzer pointed out, the
Student Body should market the issue and have SJSU’s parking predicaments and
solutions disclosed at all times to meet the public’s demands and supports.
The total costs to this proposal would be an aggregation of $90,000 annually for
carpooling incentives because there are three SJSU parking garages and $5,274,185 a
year to provide San Jose State University (SJSU) with GO passes (5,364,185). However,
increasing parking permit prices can substantially decrease these costs. For example,
there are 3,027 employees at San Jose State University and they are allowed to pay $162
for annual parking passes (Freeman 2010). If SJSU charges employees a price of what
Stanford University charges of for their employees ($726) and assuming only half of

these individuals (1,514), purchase parking permits, SJSU would gain a total of
$1,099,164. This would bring the total costs down to $4,265,021.
There are about 31,000 students who attend SJSU. SJSU students currently pay
$384 dollars annually for parking permits (Freeman 2010). Assuming half of the SJSU
students use parking permits (15,500), SJSU would receive $5,952,000 annually.
Increasing the parking permits for students by a $100 will allow SJSU to have revenue of
$1,550,000 and revenue of $3,100,000 if permit parking prices were to increase by $200.
With the deduction of $1,550,000 ($100 increase) from total costs of $4,265,021 our
proposal (deducted from employee parking revenues), the difference would be
$2,715,021 and $1,165,021 with the $200 increase.
Finally, not all students will be using Caltrain as mentioned many of times. This
fact reduces the costs to a quarter of the actual costs if the University only provides
passes to faculty, staff, and students who live in San Francisco and San Mateo Counties.
25 % of $5,274,185 for GO passes account for $1,318,546.25 and a total cost of
$1,408,546.25 with the carpooling incentives ($90,000). Therefore, if steps are taken to
find legitimate Caltrain users, the costs cut down substantially and an employee parking
price increase like Stanford’s model and a small parking permit price increase for
students is easily feasible. If SJSU wants to push for more solutions our group has
presented, the student parking permit pricing can be increased at a minimal level.

Appendix A
Survey Results
1) Do you drive to SJSU?
Yes: 66
No: 34
2) If yes, on average how long does it take you to find parking?
0-15 min: 45
20-30 min: 12
30+: 9
3) If you take public transport to SJSU, what do you use?
VTA (Bus/ Lightrail): 26
Caltrain: 2
BART: 1
Walk/Bike: 7
4) If you don’t take public transport to SJSU, why not?
Too much $: 5
Ride takes too long: 26
Not convenient to my home: 23
Other: 6
Not a convenient time: 3
5) On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = don’t care, 5 = very frustrated), how do you feel about the
parking situation at SJSU?
1: 15
2: 10
3: 28
4: 28
5: 19
6) On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = don’t care, 5 = very frustrated), how do you feel about the
public transportation options for SJSU?
1: 15
2: 16
3: 32
4: 24
5: 13

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paper ID: 163863276

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