It’s no secret that parking on campus is complex.

The UW is situated in an urban center filled with people, cars and buildings, but never enough parking. As many as 30,000 people are on campus daily, and bus passes, bike lockers, parking violations and fees must be attended to on a regular basis.

Josh Kavanagh experienced the complications of the system when he began his position as the director of the UW’s Transportation Services nine months ago.

“The parking system is far too complex,” Kavanagh said. “There are many different customer groupings, each with access to a different range of products and services. Many of these groupings and products are relics of our past. They made sense when they were created, but the University has been changing, and many of our policies simply haven’t caught up.”

It is the complexity of the system, Kavanagh said, that leads to miscommunication.

“Our staff consistently tries to go the extra mile and ensure that they really understand and address our customers’ true needs,” he said. “Even so, we’re not perfect, and it’s easy to answer the question that was asked and miss the underlying need.”

One element that some students believe isn’t working is campus residence parking.

For a month and a half, sophomore Christina Torres got up every morning before her 8:30 a.m. class to move her car. Torres lived in McMahon Hall and had brought her car to Seattle when she moved from Colorado.

She was unable to get a parking pass when she first started at the UW.

“I applied for a parking pass, and they told me that you would be on a waiting list,” she said.

Despite her frustrations last year, Torres said she understands the difficulties of managing parking at the UW.

“I understand that thousands of people have to get to UW every day, I understand why it’s expensive, [and] I understand that there needs to be some way to regulate how many people come into campus,” she said.

However, Torres still wishes something could be changed.

“I don’t know what the solution should be because there’s so many people on campus,” she said.

Graduate student Margaret Hamner also experienced firsthand difficulties and miscommunications with the UW parking system.

Hamner often works late in research labs at the UW Medical Center. She drives there, since no bus routes run late at night near her house.

Due to a disability, she parks in the most convenient lot — the pay per use parking lot, which, in an effort to reward those who drive less, charges drivers more each time they park.

Although Hamner could purchase a staff U-PASS and take a taxi home, for which staff members can get reimbursed, she believes it wouldn’t save her money due to her small salary as a research assistant.

“I haven’t purchased one because it wouldn’t really save me anything,” she said. “I end up paying more than staff either way.”

Hamner has contacted UW Commuter Services but did not get a reply.

“They literally would not respond to my emails,” she said.

Both Kavanagh and David Carr, assistant director of Commuter Services, validated Hamner’s dissatisfaction.

Kavanagh explained that originally, the UW Police Department ran parking enforcement while Parking Services, a unit of Transportation Services, ran the rest of the parking program.

“U-PASS, along with our bicycling and pedestrian programs, was housed [by] yet another unit of Transportation Services,” he said. “We’ve since brought the whole program together under the Commuter Services banner and appointed an assistant director, David Carr, to lead the consolidated program.”

Under Carr’s leadership, communication between the different transportation programs has increased.

“We’re starting by bringing related program elements together under individual managers, [allowing] us to be more responsive when we see that something isn’t working,” Carr said.

Kavanagh encourages activities like carpooling, biking or taking the bus, all of which leave a smaller environmental footprint.

“Constructing and operating parking in an urban environment is very expensive,” he said. “The cost of parking not only supports itself but helps to support other programs on campus.”

In the coming year, Commuter Services hopes to simplify its product offerings and rate structures dramatically, Kavanagh said.

However, Carr explained that the product and pricing simplification will be a multi-year project.

“We’ll be rolling out a new Web site for the fall quarter that makes it easier to understand and use our services,” he said. “I expect that we’ll make a number of incremental improvements before that.”

In the meantime, Carr emphasized the importance of feedback from those who use University transportation programs.

“We really welcome feedback from our customers,” he said. “We can help them with immediate issues, and we can also integrate what we learn in the long-term improvement plan.”

[Reach Erika Cederlind at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]