The Associate Director and all his glory....

Today I got the opportunity to sit down and speak to the assistant director of Parking and Transportation Ignacio Carrillo. He has been working at Cal State Long Beach for almost 20 years now and has loved every minute of it.

Ignacio is in charge of handling the customer service aspect of parking such as dealing with the visitor information booth and the sales of daily parking permits as well as overseeing the sales of student and employee parking permits. On top of that he oversees the Campus Connection Shuttles and the employee rideshare program.

Needless to say Ignacio is kept pretty busy, and with all the projects parking services are taking on, things will only get more hectic for him.

Stay tuned for any updates on parking services.., see ya next week

Is that a tree I see?

If you park in parking lots 1,9, 14, and 2o you may have seen or better yet drove over a tree root or two. It is a problem the parking and transportation department is planing on fixing these during the Winter and Summer 08 breaks.

The problem is that tree roots from the trees in the area are pushing through the asphalt and causing hazards for pedestrians and cars alike. The plan is to re-pave the lots to take care of the roots.

For a map of the parking lots in question click here.

So next time you are in one of the lots in question, make sure a tree doesn't branch out and get ya.

Fees to increase.... again

According to Ignacio Carrillo, the associate director of parking, the parking and transportation department is planning to build another parking structure over lot 11a in the 2008 academic year. The structure is said to coat an estimated $24 million dollars, and will add 914 parking spaces to the CSULB parking community.

It is said that this parking structure will also be used for the new Recreation and Wellness Center that is planned to begin construction sometime next year.

I don't know about you guys, but every time there is construction, parking always seems to be a mess, as a student about to graduate I am sure glad I don't have that to look forward to.

Do the shuttles really work???

If you guys don't remember , I hired a secret someone to investigate if the shuttles on campus really work. For the past six weeks my agent has rode the bus every day at numerous times in the day and timed their travel time. Here is what they found.

Week 1: total travel time: 9 am: 14.5 min
total travel time: 3 pm: 15.2 min

Week 2: Total travel time: 9am : 12 min
Total travel time: 3pm: 10 min

Week 3: Total travel time: 9am: 11 min
Total travel time: 3pm: 10 min

Week 4: Total travel time 9am: 10 min
Total travel time 3pm: 10 min

Week 5: Total travel time 9am: 7 min
Total travel time 3pm: 10 min

If you look, towards the beginning of the semester, the time it took on the shuttle was a little longer but it got shorter as the semester moved on. On week 5 i parked in the same lot as my private investigator ( The lot by the Indian Burial Grounds) and instead of taking the shuttle I booked it to upper campus ( meeting place was the PSY building) to see who would make it there before me. My PI arrived about 5 min ahead of me, (and dry as a whistle, I on the other hand was soaked in sweat) So I guess that shows, the shuttles really do work.

It was not all a smooth ride however. My PI did face some struggles. During week 2 on her am drive, the first bus that drove by, opened her bus doors and said, "Sorry guys I need to go to the bathroom, there should be another bus here shortly."

* For sake of fairness, the PI took the same route each week and parked in the same lot.

Rideshare, what's a rideshare

With the hustle and bustle that goes on here at CSULB it's got to be hard to create alternate modes of transportation for the near 30,000 students.

One program that is quite useful is the Rideshare program. The rideshare program is a series of alternate modes of transportation systems students can use to get to school such as a student carpool match list. This matches students up with other students from their neighborhoods that would be compatible to carpool together. Students who carpool also get preferential parking in the parking lot located just in front of Brotman Hall. There is also the campus connection shuttle that offers students rides from various locations on campus. (See map for details)

The Long Beach Transit, Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Orange County Transit Authority also run in and out of Long Beach State.

Associate Director Ignacio Carrillo says that Director Thomas Kenna has been working to, "establish closer partnership with Long Beach Transit to benefit students and employees." In order to create a more comprehensive system for the campus at large.

For information and to purchase monthly bus passes contact the University Bookstore Customer Service at 562.985.7945

New man on campus... kinda

This year the parking and transportation servces has seen some big changes. One of the biggest was the hiring of the new parking and transportation director Thomas Kenna. Kenna hopes to bring a new solidarity to the group.



They have a lot of new projects underway from talks of a new parking structure to expanding the rideshare program. Kenna will have his hands full.



But Kenna is more than happy to take on the challenge, "Its a new challenge coming from a private university to a public. It is great to have a team with so many years of service and experience. Candid information sharing has been essential to working to continually improve our parking services for the CSULB community. Brainstorming and posing the question of service in three separate questions has been helpful as well: How would we do this if it were our own business?, how would we do this if we were an auditor/inspector? and how would we do this if we are the customer?" says Kenna. Kenna plans to take transportation to a whole new level.



It will be interesting to see the changes Thomas Kenna will bring to CSULB, maybe I can convince him to give me a special parking spot..... Just Kidding.

Light it up, Bellflower that is...

So there has been much discussion lately about CSULB's push to add more lights on Bellflower Blvd. and since this issue has a lot to do with a push to improve transportation issues on campus, I figured I would investigate it further.

For those of you who don't know much about this effort, President F. King Alexander and the university has been working with the local city council to push for the city to implement better lighting on Bellflower Blvd. Many students and local residents walk, run, and bike down this street each night, and there is major concern about the safety of the street. The measure has been met by opposition in the city council. Recently ASI even hosted a protest (which was a tad bit unsuccessful) to bring light to the issue. As a side note, the OPINIOPN piece in the 49er was not the best ever, but it's practically the only place to find news about CSULB transportation.

Don't fret though, in an article written by the LBReport President F. King Alexander said that if the city council was unable to help,CSULB will still find a way to light up Bellflower.

Until then, we shall remain.... in the dark