Park and Ride service to ease campus commute

Immediately after KU opened its doors on Mount Oread, students started searching for ways to avoid climbing the Hill. Their attempts have included all manner of tools and pathways. Towards this end, bikes, skates, scooters and even wings (1973, Lorenzo the Magnificent) have been employed.

In the early 1900s, the University responded to students' desire with a streetcar along Jayhawk Boulevard. However, as automobiles became the solution of choice and crops of Fords and Chevys started to overtake the Hill, the KU Parking Department was born to regulate the distribution of spots. Two garages and numerous tickets later, students will find a new and more convenient answer to their parking woes this fall. Beginning in August, KU will offer students an alternative mass-transit option, the Park and Ride Express.

The Park and Ride Express bus service will shuttle students, staff and visitors from a new parking lot on KU's west campus to the main campus in less than 10 minutes. The free bus service will make approximately 11 stops on a looping route. Service begins Aug. 14.

Those who commute to campus may purchase parking permits for the lot. Permit holders will also be able to use the KU on Wheels bus service to connect to other parts of campus and Lawrence.

The $9.3 million, 1,472-stall lot will have 50 daylong metered stalls for visitors and 30 parking spaces for drivers with disabilities. The remaining spaces will be reserved for drivers with park and ride permits. The new lot replaces the smaller park and ride lot by the Lied Center and the Dole Institute of Politics.

An artist’s rendering shows what the new Park and Ride Express buses will look like. The service will start in August, with the opening of the new park and ride lot.

Several agencies joined forces to create the service:

• KU Endowment, the official fund-raising organization for KU, is leasing 26 acres to the University for the lot at a rate of $1 per year for 25 years.

• The City of Lawrence worked with KU to acquire $1 million in funding from the Department of Transportation for the five Park and Ride buses. KU is contributing an additional $348,000 for the buses.

• Optima Bus Corp., formerly known as Chance Coach, will manufacture the buses in Valley Falls, Kan. The buses will be 35-foot-long ADA-compliant Opus Low Floor models capable of carrying 50 passengers.

An artist's rendering shows an overhead view of what the park and ride lot will look like when it is completed. Iowa Street is shown running North and South, while Clinton Parkway runs east and west of the lot.

The map shows a section of the Park and Ride Express route.

See a full-size, color version of the Park and Ride Express Map.

For more information, visit www.parkandride.ku.edu.