University to Open Lots For Student Automobiles

Outdoor parking space for 450 cars will be provided on University properly next year, when the administration requires all student cars to be registered and asks men to sign a pledge to keep their automobiles off the streets overnight.

Vice-President, Reynolds' office announced yesterday that a 300-car parking lot on Western Avenue behind the Business School will be opened next September for undergraduates. This lot will be fenced in and guarded.

Three lots--behind Conant and Perkins Halls and the Cyclotron Building--will furnish space for the automobiles of 150 men in the Graduate Center. Graduate students living in non-University buildings must use the Western Avenues lots due to lack of space elsewhere.

An annual charge of $30 per car will be made for the use of all areas. One dollar will be charged as a registration fen for all cars, and a $10 fine will be levied against non-registrants.

At the present time the University also attempts to have all student cares registered, but it admits that about 30 percent go unregistered. Numbered stickers will be placed on all registered cars next fall.

University officials estimate that 700 resident undergraduates now have cars and that over half of these students will make their own arrangements next fall for keeping their cars off the street at night.

Cars Are "Luxury"

One of the chief reasons behind the new lots, according to Charles C. Pyne, assistant to Reynolds, is the statement of a large number of students that they have had a very difficult time finding parking space off the street.

Despite the new lots, the administration still considers it a "luxury" for students to have cars at college, Pyne added.

Fines running up to about $5 for consistent offenders will be charged men who park overnight on University property other than the lots. Places such as the Eliot triangle will be closed to all except those with special dispensation because of health. Cambridge police are expected to try to keep their streets clear at night.

The operation of the system will be similar to the one now used in the Business School parking lot directly back of the School. If new buildings force the closing of the present Business School lot, plans call for the adding of a special section next to the new parking lot for Business School cars.

The Western Avenue lot which will cost about $17,000 to construct will be built with the thought of possible expansion, should undergraduate demand call for it.

The new lot will be operated on a self sustaining basis with the University planning to get back its original investment over a long period of time.

Officials say that the location is the closest possible spot where a large scale parking lot can be built; they estimate that it will be just a five-minute walk from the Houses on the river.