Rethink College Park

Citing expensive parking ticket fines, confusing signs, and poor communication by the Department of Transportation Services, a group have students have launched a “Fair Parking Petition” demanding changes to university parking policies. The students complain no warning tickets are issued and the fine for a first offense is $75, as opposed to an average of $35 at other ACC schools they surveyed. They created this graph of the survey results:

The petition also calls for wider distribution of parking information to students. In order to build support group founder Alex Josephs has started a group on the Facebook. For more information about the petition or to add your name, contact him at josephsa at umd.edu. Do you think the parking system is fair?

(Click continue to read the full petition text.) (more…)

University president CD Mote weighed in on development in College Park and the proposed Campus Connector Road in an unusual appearance at tonight’s weekly SGA meeting. He noted that, around the country, College Park should be, “as good as it gets for a great college town” and that “you would be hard pressed to find a better place for a college town.” A main obstacle, he claimed, is that the City of College Park just “doesn’t want to change Route 1.” When asked by SGA President Emma Simson for clarification on the university’s connector road position, Mote responded, “all we are asking for is a study” and essentially argued that the study could come up with alternatives other than the proposed limited access highway. He later pointed out that no one has proposed a viable alternative to the new roadway and thus reiterated his previous “only option” assertions. He jokingly referred to College Park Mayor Stephen Brayman’s suggestion (also a joke) that the university should rope off everything within 1.5 miles of campus from cars and force people to walk or take buses. Anyone have what president Mote dubbed a ‘sizzle’ alternative to this road?

If any of our readers knows the study where administrators are getting this ‘11,000 cars off Route 1 and onto the connector road’ number please email it to us – we’d love to have a look.

If you want to get more involved in the community this fall, there’s plenty of ways to do it this week.
First, today and tomorrow (Wednesday and Thursday) the First Look Fair will take over much of McKeldin Mall. Over 400 groups will have tables set up from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. both days. If you are on campus you can’t miss it. Representatives from Rethink College Park will be sharing a table with our friends at The Terrapin and The College Park Site. Stop by to say hello, learn more about what we’re trying to do, or see how you can help.

Also Wednesday there is the transportation forum at 9:30 a.m. in the Student Union, and we have heard President Mote will be making a presentation to the SGA at 6 p.m., also in the Union. If that weren’t enough, on Thursday the 21st the city is holding an important informational meeting about their tentative agreement to construct a 9-story, 165-unit condo building where City Hall is now, build a new 340-space downtown parking garage, and reconstruct the Friends School building for a new city hall.

The Diamondback reported last week, in a bizarrely similar pair of articles, that the Michael Company (with many development projects in the area) donated nearly $250,000 to the Anacostia Watershed Society to repair and prevent further erosion on Paint Branch Creek. The creek begins north of College Park in the Beltsville Agricultural Research Station and runs directly behind the west side of Route 1 starting at Jiffy Lube and continuing on until it passes under the road at UMD’s North Gate. The stream and its constantly eroding banks make for narrow lots and uncertain conditions for developers seeking the build multistory condos and office buildings on the streamside of Route 1. State Sen. Giannetti estimated the total effort would take $1.5 million and is asking for $250,000 from the university to install rocks, retention ponds, and retaining walls to slow the flow of the water. Similar efforts are already underway around campus.

The erosion is a natural process but it is hastened by impermeable, unforested surfaces (like agriculture and parking lots) that quickly channel storm water into the creek. You may have noticed this around the University View after a major storm.

>9/7/06 Diamondback “Paint Branch Creek to get funds”

>9/5/06 Diamondback “Developer contributes to stream restoration“

Got a suggestion or complaint about campus transportation? The Department of Transportation will be holding the first of a series of monthly community forums tomorrow, Wednesday, September 20 at 9:30 a.m. in the Thurgood Marshall room in the student union.

We also noticed on the DOTS website that the new University Town Center route now runs from 12:00 noon until 1 a.m. Saturday with service roughly every hour.

The Philip Merrill College of Journalism has announced a $4.4 million gift from the Knight Foundation (founded by what is now Night Ridder). $2.4 million of the gift will go towards establishing a new journalism institute and bolstering funding for existing Knight-initiatives. The remaining money will be added to $3 million previously donated by the foundation to meet the $5 million required to name the J-School’s new building John S. and James L. Knight Hall. The building will have a prominent location on the university’s planned west mall adjacent to the Art-Soc building and the nearby traffic circle. Expected completion: 2009.

In the last few weeks, this website has received over a hundred hits from people searching for information about the Thirsty Turtle, a new bar opening on Route 1 in downtown College Park. Owner Alan Wanuck has not yet announced an opening date but we’ve noticed construction is ongoing at the bar, and the bottom level appears to be nearing completion. Wanuck told the Gazette newspaper last week he would like to open in the “very near future.” He also told the paper he hoped the new restaurant will also appeal to university faculty and College Park residents in addition to students. As soon as we hear we’ll post an opening date, and if you know anything more about the bar feel free to comment.

> Gazette: “The Thirsty Turtle quick to fill vacancy”

The logo is from another Thirsty Turtle — in Aurora, Indiana.

The City Council agreed at their Wednesday meeting to proceed with a Preliminary Site Agreement (PDF) for the redevelopment on the existing city hall site just behind Smoothie King. The site will be transformed by Capstone Development Corp into a no more than 9 story building with roughly 165 condos plus retail and/or commercial space. The parking garage we reported on yesterday and also part of the deal, would be located directly across Knox Rd. If the current plans go through, City Hall will be relocated at the (to be reconstructed) Friends School Building near campus. An informational meeting will be held September 21st at 7pm in City Hall.