University Will Not Increase parking Despite Suspension of EPA Restriction

The University has no plans to restore the 540 employee parking spaces it eliminated to comply with a 1973 ruling of the Environmental protection Agency which suspended last week.

"There is sufficient parking for employees even with the cutbacks." Samuel Gilfix, a spokesman for the University Parking Office said last night Gilfix said his office was treating the ruling as only temporarily suspended because the EPA has yet to officially submit to his office an alternate plan. The EPA ruled last year that employers with 50 or more workers reduce employee parking space by more than 25 per cent.

The present cutbacks represent '3 per cent of the University's goal of 741 spaces to be reduced to meet the 1973 demands. Gilfix said. The University will make no further restrictions unless there is a definitive congressional ruling, he said.

It further parking restrictions are passed by Congress they would impose difficulties on University employees, Gilfix said. However, he said that will the prevent restrictions there is no excess demand for parking spaces and there are no employee parking waiting lists.

Before the EPA ruling a lot of the space were empty anyhow," he said, because of a Cambridge ordinance that set a minimum requirement on parking spaces.

Gilfix added that the increased cost of driving, higher gas and insurance prices, and increased University parking fees, have reduced the number of employees driving to work in the last year.

Harold L. Goyette, director of the University planning office said yesterday that the increased parking rates have no bearing on the compliance with the EPA regulations. "They are intended only to shift some of the costs from the Faculty to the user," Goyette said.

We don't want to force people on to public transportation by raising parking costs more than necessary since it imposes undue hardship on those without easy access to public transportation." Gilfix said.

He said even at the increased rates University parking is competitive with or cheaper than public transportation.

The lowest rate for University parking averages 23 cents a day while the highest or reserved rate is about 50 cents a day. Minimum round-trip fare on Boston public transportation is 50 cents.