UC San Diego unveiled the Osler Parking Structure on August 31, adding 1,350 parking spaces to the campus.
The structure, located off of Gilman Drive in the School of Medicine neighborhood, replaces two parking lots that used to primarily serve the Health Sciences community. A new campus Visitors’ Center is also expected to open adjacent to it later this year.
UCSD Director of Transportation Josh Kavanagh estimates that Osler contains nearly 500 student parking spots, more than 525 staff parking spots, and more than 150 faculty parking spots. Of the student spaces, 50 spots will be dedicated to a new program that reserves spots for two- and three-person carpools during a specific time frame. The facility also includes bicycle parking and solar panels to enhance sustainability.
“Osler’s guidance system is state-of-the-art,” Kavanagh said. “We are deploying similar technology in each new garage while also planning to add sensors to existing facilities and show real-time space availability in the campus mobile app.”
Kavanagh also revealed that his department would be making adjustments to other parking facilities on campus in order to prepare for the upcoming fall quarter.
“Over the summer, we were down 979 total stalls, with student spaces down by roughly 550, due to the construction of the North Torrey Pines Living and Learning Neighborhood,” he said. “But the student population contracts more significantly than staff or faculty during the summer months, so it was not that big of a problem.”
Accounting for these lost spots, the Osler opening, and other additions around campus, Kavanagh estimates that the campus gained a net amount of 750 parking spots between the start of summer and the start of the fall quarter. The consolidation of staff parking at Osler will enable the restoration of many student parking and carpool spaces at the Hopkins and Gilman Parking Structures that were allocated to staff for the summer terms.
Chancellor Pradeep Khosla’s office published a blog post announcing the garage’s opening with optimism. “This is UC San Diego’s most technologically-advanced structure yet, with tools to help our transportation services team manage the parking system more efficiently and the largest number of EV charging stalls,” the post reads. “The new structure is one of many parking solutions being implemented on campus.”
Thi Nguyen is a Contributing Writer for The Triton.
Correction: This article was updated on September 27, 2018 at 5:00 p.m. A previous version misspelled UCSD Director of Transportation Kavanagh’s name as “Kavanaugh”. We apologize for the error.