The Kent Vale car park, where students have long enjoyed free parking on the NUS Kent Ridge campus, closed permanently on Feb. 28 to make way for the expansion of Kent Vale, a housing estate for NUS staff members.

Its closure adds one more grievance to the already long list of gripes students have about parking problems on campus, including parking fees and insufficient parking space.

Sulaiman Salim, senior manager of the Office of Estate and Development, said the closure was necessary to expand the current 516-unit Kent Vale complex to meet the strong demand for on-campus faculty housing.

He advised affected students to park at three other fringe car parks which offer discounted parking fees, capped at $3.852 for a full-day parking.

These car parks are located at the Institute of Systems Science, the University Cultural Centre and Prince George's Park residences.

Many students, however, do not find his suggestion very viable.

“These car parks with caps are totally far off from the main faculties and so inconvenient,” said third-year economics student Julia Lim.

Parking somewhere more convenient, however, would incur higher parking charges, a common dilemma students face.

Natasha Ismail, a third-year business student, recalled being charged $15 for parking just two hours at car park 10, opposite the Faculty of Science.

The same thing happened to third-year communications and new media student Cheryl Toh, even though she had purchased season parking.

Toh said she chalked up more than $20 worth of parking fees, because she did not know that her season parking pass was limited for use only at her faculty’s cluster of car parks.

As a result, she had to pay a penalty surcharge of 8.56 cents for every minute her car was parked there.

Both Ismail and Toh blamed the car park signboard for being too small and easy to miss. Ismail said, “They should make the sign bigger if they intend to fine us for parking in the wrong place.”

Salim, from the Office of Estate and Development, said they could have parked at some of the common car parks on campus or simply have taken the internal shuttle bus services.

“All these are there to facilitate student movement across faculties,” he said.

However, season-pass holders said that for the price of the pass, they should have parking lots reserved for them.

“It makes no sense to pay for season parking only to have no lots and be forced to park illegally, and then receive a warning letter and get my car wheel-clamped,” said third-year economics student Chua Boon Siong.

While Salim admitted that the office issues 20 percent more season passes than the number of available parking spaces, he said this is a common practice at many car parks in Singapore.

Doing so actually provides more parking space for students, contrary to what they believe, he said.

Season holders’ vehicles will not be in the car park all the time. By not limiting the lots to season holders only, non-season holders can utilise the lots too.

Some students, however, are not satisfied with the Office of Estate and Development’s justifications and have taken to venting their frustrations online.

They log onto forums such as Hardware Zone and SgForums to discuss ways of getting around the system to evade parking fees.

For example, some say they tailgate other vehicles out the car park, or drive in and out the car park and then reverse back in just before the exit barrier descends.

Radio Pulze, an NUS on-campus students' radio station, dedicated part of the “Let’s Complain” segment on its noon show on March 9 to airing students’ complaints about the Kent Vale car park closure.

Its executive producer, Dexter Tan, expects this closure to lead to more parking offences on campus.

“Students have to get to class no matter what,” he said. “With the lack of car park lots, many students might take to parking illegally. Many times, when students get fined or wheel-clamped, they feel that it’s not their fault.”

He also suggested that the Office of Estate and Development should create a temporary place to accommodate the cars that used to park at the Kent Vale car park.

“The office should convert some of the existing staff car park lots into parking lots for student season parkers,” he said. “I remember reading one complaint about the number of empty staff lots at the engineering staff car park.”

Salim said the Office of Estate and Development is mindful of the need to provide affordable parking rates for students.

However, he also said the current parking fees are reasonable.

“The standard parking rate of 2.14 cents per minute is comparable to the parking rate at the car parks at the nearby National University Hospital,” he said.

“The monthly season parking rate of $20 for students is also substantially lower than the season parking rate for car parks in the vicinity operated by other agencies, which ranges from $60 to $75 per month.”

In comparison, season parking on Nanyang Technological University’s campus costs between $35 and $55 per month.

Season parking on Singapore Management University’s city campus costs $130 per month and might increase in the next semester, according to SMU Motor Inc, a student group which oversees the university's motoring needs.

Salim said the university has plans to build more car parks along the periphery of the campus but no immediate plans to reduce campus parking rates.

The whole idea, he said, is to strive toward an environmentally friendly campus. The university is trying to reduce vehicular traffic on campus and encourage students to commute using public transport and the internal shuttle bus services provided by NUS.

“We seek the support and understanding of NUS staff and students as we work towards our goal,” Salim said.

A version of this article appeared in the April issue of The Ridge.

Top

Above: The previous Kent Vale car park is undergoing construction to become part of an expanded Kent Vale Estate for more on-campus staff housing.