According to the bid form, students will be separated into commuter and resident categories. Parking & Shuttle Services is asking vendors to provide 8,750 orange "commuter core" parking permits and 2,100 light blue "commuter TC" permits. What do you suppose TC stands for? Here's an educated guess: Towson Center. Who will receive permits for the Towson Center? Are they designed for apartment dwellers who will have the option of riding a TU shuttle to campus next fall? To date, the University hasn't told us.
Meanwhile, residents will receive purple parking permits. The bid form requests 400 "resident 26" and 300 "resident 7" permits. I assume 26 refers to parking lot 26 behind the Glen Towers and 7 refers to parking lot 7 next to the Residence Tower.
All the other current types of parking permits â€" faculty/staff, Towson Run, evening â€" are listed on the bid form, as well.
So what exactly is Towson planning for next fall? President Robert Caret recently said the school will try to entice students to use the shuttles and leave the car at home.
"One of the things we're looking at is, if you live within a certain range of campus and you live in one of the apartment complexes we're looking at, you'll either be given a choice of shuttling or getting a parking permit, but you can't get both," he said.
(Wouldn't it be helpful to publicize the future off-campus shuttle routes as students decide where to live next fall?)
Towson is apparently "looking" at a lot of options, but the campus hasn't been told of any decisions yet. Let's just hope Towson doesn't keep us in the dark about the big parking plan for too much longer.
One man's nuisance is another man's party
- What is a "nuisance house?"
- How many times does a neighbor have to complain about a student living next door before Towson University will pay attention?
- To what extent can TU get involved in the affairs of its students off campus?
We may hear answers to these questions by the end of the semester. Towson is going a step further than it has in the past by looking at "nuisance house legislation" involving off-campus students. [Read all about it on page one.]
"I like meeting with community groups, as long as they don't bring weapons," President Robert Caret half-joked on Thursday night at a meeting of the Greater Towson Council of Community Associations.
Caret's comments about consequences for neighborhood misconduct appeared to appease some members of the GTCCA, even though he admitted he has been "reluctant" to insert the University into the off-campus lives of its students. The neighbors kept the long knives at home and quietly took notes as Caret explained Towson's growth aspirations.
Towson needs to build on the goodwill developed Thursday by reaching out to the town on a consistent basis. When asked if TU would send an envoy to the GTCCA every month, replacing former spokesperson Susanna Craine, Caret hedged. He mentioned how TU has several community liaisons -- student affairs, police, governmental relations -- but the University really needs one person to coordinate the various communicators and attend meetings like the GTCCA.
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