You Can't Pahk Yah Cah In Hahvahd Yahd, But...

So the family just gave you a brand new little sports car for your birthday, and you're just dying to bring it up to school and zip around Boston. No more trips home on Amtrack, no more mad dashes for the last subway out of Park St. You're a free spirit now, a real independent individual.

Wait a minute, though, Ignore the fact that Boston's streets are notoriously the worst in the nation, filled with potholes that could disable a German tank. Never mind that Massachusetts drivers don't pay attention to little things like stop signs, street lights, and pedestrians. Disregard the local police's intense, burning desire to spend the major portion of each day ticketing every vehicle in sight.

Take all those factors, banish them forever, and there's still one major consideration before bringing a car to Harvard: parking. Parking at Harvard is no simple matter. It is neither inexpensive nor convenient. In fact, it can often be a harrowing experience.

Getting a car into an on-campus space is a fairly simple, but somewhat annoying procedure. It means filling out forms--forms to register your car free of charge with Harvard and forms to obtain a non-resident student permit to drive in Massachusetts. The permit is also issued for free, the only requirement being that you carry the proper insurance coverage to drive in Massachusetts. But, if you want an actual parking space, it means money. Lots of money.

The University has more than 50 different parking areas covering the entire campus. From Western Ave. north to Observatory Hill and from Concord Ave, east to 61 Kirkland St., Harvard has created lots and garages for the more than 450 University affiliated motorists who have contracted for on-campus parking space this year.

Other these 4500, 1838 are students; but only 94 of those students are undergraduates. Just slightly more than one per cent of the undergraduate population here spends $220 a year for 24-hour a day, 7-day a week, on-campus space. And with only a few minor exceptions, all of these undergraduates must park their cars at the Business School lot.

Robert J. Burns, acting director of the University parking office, says the requirement that all undergraduates park their cars at the Business School is a rule set "long ago" by the Council of Deans. Like many other Harvard institutions, the rule has continued through the yeas; and Jesse Garner, a staff assistant in the parking office, says, "we (the parking office) can't really change policy although it;s obvious that something needs to be done. I guess no student has shaken the tree hard enough yet."

The Business School requirement for undergraduates causes the most problems for residents of the Radcliffe Quad. Students at the River Houses face a reasonable five or ten minute walk to their cars; but Quad students, dealing with irregular shuttle bus service to the Business School, have a considerably longer journey to their cars.

Prior to this year, students at the Quad parked their cars on the streets around Radcliffe, despite a University regulation that "undergraduates living in a dormitory and residents of any University housing, may not park motor vehicles on any Cambridge street between the hours of 2 a.m. to 6 a.m."

This year, however, Cambridge has made most of the streets by Radcliffe "residents only" parking areas, requiring people who park on those streets to obtain a Cambridge residency permit. This residency permit is not available to students unless they declare their residency in Cambridge which would jeopardize their voting rights, scholarship eligibility and other benefits from their home states.

Burns and other University officials have acknowledged the parking problem at the Quad, but there is no immediate solution in sight.

Officials in the University Planning Office have said there are "no-long-range major plans to speak of" now which would alleviate the inconvenience for student motorists living at the Quad. They say any changes would have to come from a policy shift originating with the eight-member Parking Advisory Committee, chaired by Joe B. Wyatt, vice president for administration.

Burns, who is a member of that committee, says that committee makes recommendations to the Council of Deans which must then approve these recommendations. He adds that there are no plans currently under discussion that deal with the Quad parking problem. "What we have started to think about it where people will park for the new Kennedy School when it opens," he says.

The space problem exists because besides the 4500 cars with parking permits, there are another 600 drivers who register their cars with the University but do not purchase parking space, and then an additional group of car owners who, despite University regulations, do not bother to register their cars at all. That leaves somewhere near 6000 cars running (or driving) around Harvard. (The University regulation states that failure to register a car with the University leaves a student open to a $25 fine.)

Aside from all those cars competing for the limited Harvard space, Burns says that there are "plenty of people coming into the Square who just pull into a spot, not realizing it's a Harvard space." He adds, however, that signs are posted near all spaces identifying them as "parking by permit only."

The result is that University Police and parking monitors from the parking office in Grays Hall write 25-50 tickets a day for parking violations. Burns also estimates that the University tows 30 to 40 cars a week, and that's a major source of business for Cambridge's well-known auto removal service, Pat's Towing.

Since late 1975, Burns says Pat's has been doing the towing for Harvard by virtue of its low bid for the yearly contracts. Parking official seem pleased with the performance of the men in the bright red trucks, but students with cars often have a very different opinion of the towing establishment.

"They come in here real angry sometimes, but they get over it quickly," Burns says, recalling stories of students who have complained about having their car towed.

The main trouble spots lie around the River Houses, where students often leave their cars, rather than bringing them across the River to the Business School lot. Whether they are visiting a friend, packing to leave, or grabbing a meal, students often return to find an empty space, their car now in the possession of Pat's. (Burns says, however, that under the agreement between Harvard and Pat's, the tow truck should drop the car without charge if a student comes out to claim his car before the truck has pulled away.)

Some get lucky and receive only a ticket, but Burns says that those who pull into a Master's space or other reserved space, or block a fire lane, will be towed immediately. In the case of other violations, Burns says his office and the police try to work together to "be fair about it;" however, he adds that after the third ticketing, a car will be automatically towed.

People are allowed to stop to load a car before leaving on a trip, but Burns advises that they lave a note on the windshield, and the police will then allow them some time to pack and pull out. He adds the police are more lenient with the enforcement of the regulations during the first few and last few days of school, when everyone is moving in or out.

Burns says, however, "The problem of enforcement is especially tough during the winter months," citing this past winter as an especially difficult one.

Complaints from people who have reserved spaces around the University rose during the winter, Garner said, as did the incidence of cars blocking fire lanes and parking outside of their assigned lots. Buns says the fire lane violations "really infuriate the fire chief when he drives around" and when the heavy snows of February limited parking space, many of the fire lanes became jammed with cars.

Burns notes that even more trouble set in when Cambridge residents were ordered off the streets for a few days during snow removal operations. He says many people pulled into Harvard lots and garages and just left their cars there.

"We left notes on the cars, but after the third day, we had to tow them away." He adds that the University had to tow more than 50 cars during the snow emergency between midnight and 8 a.m. on February 10 because "we couldn't get the tow trucks at any other time."

But that was just one of the many problems this winter. Snow removal, which cost $90,000 this year--almost twice the normal budget for keeping the University lots clean--put a severe cramp in the budget.

Also this winter, the masters at Eliot, Kirkland and Winthrop Houses complained to the parking office about the number of cars parking on the grassy area near the three Houses. Garner says the masters called the area "an eyesore," because cars had driven over the grass leaving large ruts and muddy patches on rainy days.

As a result, the Planning Office drew up a temporary solution--setting logs around the field to keep cars off the grass. Garner says this is "technically a temporary change which just keeps the cars off the field." He adds that the Planning Office has not yet drawn up a permanent plan, which might involve sinking curbstones or a similar type of barrier to keep cars off the grass.

In addition, in the improvements category, the major change that Harvard has come up with is the institution two years ago of the new computer card/ guard system which now controls the Business School lot. Under that system, people who park in the lot have a magnetic card which they use to open the gate leading into the out of the lot. There is also a security guard on duty 24 hours a day. The Soldiers Field garage also has the card system, and Peabody Terrace will soon have a similar set-up.

"At one time they'd lost 40-50 cars from the Business School Lot," Burns says, adding, "There hasn't been a stolen car now in the past two years."

He adds that other garages and lots around the school have not had much of a problem with vandalism, although there are occasionally reports of minor incidents. "The police pass through garages every 20 to 30 minutes," Burns says, attributing much of the low vandalism rates to the frequent patrolling.

The parking office is also instituting a computer system that will log information on all cars and drivers registered with the University. Besides record-keeping help, the computer will provide an easy way for parking officials to get information through the Department of Motor Vehicles in any state so the University can enforce fines for cars not registered at Harvard but parked illegally. Students who register their cars with Harvard are charged on their term bill if they fail to pay parking tickets; but prior to the computer installation, collecting from unregistered cars was more difficult.

Visitors can obtain a parking permit from Grays Hall which entitles them to an on-campus space for a one-dollar-a-day charge. "We try to assign them to lots closest to where they are visiting," Burns says, but adds that this is not always possible because of space restrictions.

In sum, the current parking system represents Harvard's way of trying to accommodate a large number of cars in a limited, city area. For undergraduates, this can mean inconvenience and high expense, although security improvements have made parking at Harvard much safer. But it's something to think about before your bring that little sports car up to Cambridge, and that's exactly the way the University wants it. A little cost-benefit analysis is definitely in order.