University campus parking: It’s all the rage

Transportation planners, engineers, and researchers have long lamented the highly emotional public responses generated by changes to parking policies. We know that reducing the supply and increasing the price for parking—while intended to advance sustainability and other important community goals—seems to fuel an angry response, but this knowledge is often vague and anecdotal. This study combines qualitative coding of open-ended survey responses with quantitative analyses of sociodemographic and commute characteristics using descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression models to reveal a strong correlation between parking and anger among University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) campus users. Higher probabilities of anger are also positively associated with annual household incomes below $50,000, bus pass holders, and residential locations outside of the immediate UWM neighborhood. Qualitative themes from angry comments include frustrations about parking price, supply, and duration; questions about the motivations for university parking policies; and a sense of entitlement among campus users to free and inexpensive parking options. The study interprets these variables and themes together to provide insights into the complicated relationship between parking and anger and the importance of analyzing angry feedback to inform future policies.