College empowers Impark to give students more access
By Atiba Nelson, Staff Reporter
On April 6, students will have a new way to purchase parking passes for most of Douglas’ parking lots (excluding the parking lot at Douglas’ Anvil Tower location, which are operated by the City of New Westminster).
The College announced that a new parking system would be initiated via the news webpage of the Douglas College homepage. The news item touted the system as a “modern and flexible,” according to the news announcement.
Currently, Douglas College parking lots are administered by Impark, the Vancouver-based corporation that is North America’s largest parking company with approximately 4,600 parking facilities across 400 cities across Canada and the United States.
The new parking system will wholly be administered by Impark, and will allow students to “apply for and manage semester-based parking permits online, as well as pay for daily parking using an app or through automated parking kiosks,” said Andrew Hodgson, Manager for Facilities Services at Douglas College’s New Westminster Campus in an interview for the Other Press.
By essentially moving parking services online, the college believes that barriers inherent in acquiring parking passes will be eliminated.
Additional barriers to be removed include the actual physical parkade exit barriers. According to Hodgson, all parkade exit barriers will be removed to align with the release of the system.
With many physical and operational changes coming to parking at Douglas, commuting students may wonder if an increase in parking rates are coming, as Douglas recently increased the cost of park on campus.
According to the college, the fee for student semester-based parking permits and daily parking rates will remain unchanged for the near future, until the $45 price hike in the new year.
“There is a planned increase to student semester-based parking permits for January 1, 2021,” commented Hodgson, “[but it is] unrelated to this change.”
The criteria for student semester parking permit eligibility will not change. Students must be registered in a minimum of six credits and have paid, in full, all tuition and other fees.
Douglas College operates several parking facilities for student semester pass holders, such as an underground parkade and Carnarvon parkade on the New Westminster campus, as well as a surface lot and town centre parking lots (Lots A and E) on the Coquitlam campus.
