Policy Analysis On The Parking Problem At Downtown State University

Statement of the problem

Policy analysis refers to the overall process of effectively identifying potential policy options that can be help in addressing a particular issues and then compared those options to the most optimal as well as feasible one. It allows in examining an argument that is related to a concerned policy and in order to analyze the implementation of the particular policy as well. The following report is based on the case study of Downtown State University in order to examine the parking problem on its urban campus. The following report will highlight the overall issue through stamen problem as well as provide background overview and the importance of the problem. In addition to this, it will discuss policy landscape consisting of key stakeholder and key factors that influence the issue. At last the report will provide a proposed solution and recommendation for the issue along with implementation and evaluation plan.

Statement of the problem.

The Downtown State University is an urban campus that is located within a mile from the core of the Atlanta’s downtown. The establishment has 12,000 students and 4,000 faculty and staff members. In recent times the university undertook a crucial construction project that focused on adding over 1,500 parking spaces in two parking decks. The average cost of construction of each parking space is estimated to be $14,000. The overall issue for the organization developed as higher parking fees were imposed relative to the newly established student center parking deck. The new fees consisted of addition parking fees of $100 per vehicle with a daily change of $1.50 for anyone who wishes use the new facility provided by the organization (Shoup, 2021).

The development of the new student center parking resulted in higher level of dissatisfaction relative to the pricing policy of the facility among students. This is due to the fact that the students prefer to park a mile away and either walk or use the shuttle bus rather that utilizing the facilities of the organization and pay $1.50 addition charges for the daily access. This has resulted in an overall parking shortage across the campus, except in the student center parking deck which is relatively empty most of the days even when compared to peak parking demand. This has caused the parking and transportation budget to suffer as it is falling short of over $100,000 in anticipated revenues due to the low utilization of the student center parking deck (Surber, Shoup & Wachs, 1983).

Background, overview along with significance of the problem

This has also caused off-campus issues as the local residence in the adjacent neighborhood of the north of campus have made several complaints to the Downtown State University relive to students and the staff parking on the streets in their neighborhood in order to avoid paying the addition fees of the annual parking. This has causes the university to have disagreements with the local neighborhood as well as the City of Atlanta which would like the organization to deal with the issue internally and recommended that in order to solve the issue the campus should take necessary disciplinary measure in order to eliminate the overall problem in a systematic as well as structured manner.

The overall issue foe the organization began with the construction of new student center parking deck. This cost the organization vast amount of financial resource. The issue began with the increase in the price policy relative to the annual parking fees which was increased. This was not received well by the students as well as the staff members of the establishment. In addition to this, this caused a huge shit in the overall demand for parking space as the student center parking was seen empty for majority of the time. The students as well as the staff members prefer to park away from the campus and walk or utilize the shuttle business rather than paying the addition fees to the campus. In addition to this, the campus received multiple complaints for the near neighborhoods as the student and staff members were parking n the streets in order to avoid the addition parking fees.

This issue is highly significant for the organization as it impacts if overall budget for parking and transportations. In addition to this, it negatively impacts the demand for the parking within the campus as the supply for parking space is high but the factor of cost negatively impacts its acceptance among the students and the staff members. This is crucial for the organization as about 15,000 annual parking permits applications are processed each year out of which 74 percent are for first vehicles, 15 percent for second vehicles and 3 percent for the third and additional vehicles along with 8 percent for replacement vehicles. The issue is significant for the campus as the parking permits help in the generation of about $1.15 million in revenue. This amount constitutes for over half of the entire parking and transportations. The student center parking deck will help in attaining $160,000 annually through the collection of daily parking fees (Greene-Roesel & et. al. 2018). This generation of finances is vital for the campus as it is utilized in order to cover the operating costs of the shuttle bus as well as the escort van services that are utilized by the campus residents. This makes the issue of imbalance in the supply and demand of parking space crucial for the campus and needs to be resolved in an effective and efficient manner.

Discussing Policy Landscape including key stakeholders and key factors that influence the issues from a policy perspective

The aspect of policy landscape refers to the set of ideas along with plans that are based on a particular situation and has to be agreed by group of individuals or an organization. In context to Downtown State University, the establishment is facing issues relative to the newly established student center parking due the introduction of new addition fees (Li, 2018). This is not well received by the students as well as the staff members. This has resulted in an imbalance in the overall demand and supply of the parking space in the region. Given below are key stakeholder of the policy landscape as well as key influence on the issue:

Students and staff: The students as well as staff members of the organization are vital stakeholders relative to the overall issue. This is due to their influence on the demand for parking spaces as well as their willingness to pay parking fees (Gacitua & et. al. 2018). This impacts the issues as they decreed payment of parking fees influences the overall budget of the campus relative to parking and transportation which impacts the transportation operation.

Neighborhood community: The local neighborhood community is also a key stakeholder for the organization as it is being negatively impacted by the pricing policies of the establishment. This has caused discussing with the City of Atlanta along with the police department. This makes the overall issue vital for the campus (Bulusu & et. al. 2021).

High level of cost: The overall addition cost is a major key influencer in the issue as it is not well received by both the students and the staff members of the organization. The increase in the parking fees has discouraged the student and staff members form utilizing the newly built parking facilities (Rose, 2019). This has develop an issues based on imbalance relative to the supply and demand of parking space based on price.

Cheaper alternatives: There are various alternatives that the students as well as staff members are utilizing in order to avoid playing the additional parking fees to the campus. This is a key influencer of the issue as the student and staff members are able to avoid payment of fees which is vital for the organization to maintain its other transportation operations (Wang & Wang, 2019).

The policy option refers to a structured manner that is utilized in order to evaluate and choose an alternative course of action. It consist of looking into the futures in order to predict what will happen next and bases the different actions that can be taken in order to attain optimal solution (Zhang, Wolshon & Murray-Tuite, 2019). In context to Downtown State University, The development of policy options will allow the organization to overcome the issues of imbalance relative to the supply and demand in tis parking in and effective as well as efficient manner. In addition to this, the development of policy options will help in enhancing its current transportation operations which will improve its overall generation of financial resource in an optimal manner. Given below re policy options that can be used by Downtown State University along with its criteria:

Key stakeholders

Transportation Demand management (TDM): The option of transportation demand management has become vital in the recent years due to the increase in the overall number of vehicles and a decline in the availability of space for the vehicles to park. The overall objective to TDM is to develop a balance relative to the people-focused and infrastructure-focuses in order to solve problems such as traffic congestion, infrastructure cost, parking challenges along with environmental impacted (Feeney, 1986). In context to Downtown State University, this policy option meets the overall criteria of the issue faced by the origination. The option of TDM can allow the establishment to solve the issue of high demand for parking as it will offer a streamline approaches and develop management infrastructure which will make the parking facility more accessible as well as affordable, thus reducing spillover rates (Appendix 1).

Parking management: This policy options can allow the organization of Downtown State University to understand how to develop a systematic as well as structure parking polices that will help in the reduction of conflicts relative to parking, raising revenue along with economic development which may be appropriate to be utilized in parking policy as a demand management tool (Ferguson, 1990) (Appendix 2).

The proposed policy solution for Downtown State University is to utilize Transportation Demand Management (TDM) in order to overcome the issue. The utilization of TDM will allow the organization to develop set strategies that are oriented towards maximizing the choices of travelers. In addition to this, it will help the establishment to provide significant saving for the students as well as the staff members (Shi & et. al 2019). This will help the establishment to bring some form of balance to this supply and demand of parking space relative to tis pricing policy. Furthermore, some recommendations are also provided below in order to overcome the problem:

Shared parking: It is recommended that Downtown State University should focus on the concept of shared parking in order to encourage the student as well as staff members to use the newly built parking spaces in an effective manner (Bartels & Wittmayer, 2019). In addition to this, it will allow the organization to ensure that all the spaces are being utilized in an optimal manner as well as generation of financial resources as well.

Remote parking: It is also recommend to Downtown State University that it can focus on the concept of remote parking and can develop plans that are based on adopting a neighborhood parking permit program in order to overcome the issue. This will help the establishment to use the space outside of the campus to their advantage and ensure that they are able to generate financial resource sin order to maintain other transportation operations (Deakin, 2019).

Key influence

Parking Prices: It is recommend to Downtown State University that it can pay emphasis on altering its parking prices through above mentioned recommendations which are shared parking as well as remote parking permits (Mouw & Shaw, 2018). This will help the establishment in solving the issue of the overall imbalance in demand and supply of parking that was caused by the introduction of addition parking fees. This will help the establishment in ensuring that it is able to generate sufficient financial funds to maintain its other transportation operations such as the shuttle bus (Appendix 3).

Identifying the main types of evaluation that will be conducted:

There are three main types of evaluation that can be utilized by Downtown State University and are elaborated below:

Policy content evaluation: This type of evaluation consist on understanding the overall aspects that are within a policy in order to develop a structured as well as a systematic framework in overcoming a particular issue in an effective along with efficient manner (Kavta & Goswami, 2018).

Policy implementation evaluation: This type of evaluation pays emphasis on the implementation of the overall policy in order to understand what resource will be required in implementing the policy in an optimal manner (Yildirimoglu & Ramezani, 2020).

Policy impact evaluation: This type of policy evaluation consists of understanding the overall impact of the policy relative to the issues once it is implemented. It allows in understanding if the impact of the policy was positive or negative (Ma, Koutsopoulos & Chen, 2018).

Discussing the type of evaluation method that will be used:

All the above mentioned types of evaluation will be utilized for the analyses of the policy in order to gain a deeper insight on how the issue can be resolved in an effective and efficient manner. It will allow in the development of a systematic structured that is necessary to overcome the issue in an optimal manner (Ferguson, 2018). This will help Downtown State University to solve the issues relative to the impact of supply and demand of parking space.

Developing Logic model:

The development of logic model help in providing assistance in evaluation of the policy and provides a picture on how the policy is intended to work (Wu & Shen, 2019). In context to Downtown State University, the logic model relative to the proposed policy is given below:

Conclusion

From the above report it is concluded that, it is crucial for an organization to develop appropriate as well as suitable strategies in order to keep its operations effective as well as efficient. The report relative to the case study was able to conclude that the development of new polices in order to overcome the presented situation it is vital to understand the problem through a structured and systematic statement. In addition to this, it is important for an organization to understand the importance of the issues in order to have optimal policy analysis. Furthermore, it is vital to identify the key stakeholder as well as key factors that influence the issues relative to policy perspective. There should also be development of policy options in order to attain a solution. The report also provides suitable recommendation in order to overcome the presented issues and identified the required types of evaluation for the policy along with a logic model.

References

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