New parking assignments, a more responsive shuttle system, and increased communication from the Department of Parking and Transportati on Services are designed to help guide faculty, staff, and students through the fall semester, as the vision of a pedestrian campus at Storrs - a key element of the campus master plan - begins to come into being.

A new "busway," which extends Mansfield Road from the bend near Gulley Hall and connects it to Glenbrook Road, is poised to open this week, taking many of the shuttle buses off Route 195 and improving the time they take between stops. And new parking lot assignments for faculty and staff, says Donna Wakeman, UConn's new director of parking and transportation services, are intended to further reduce the practice of "hunting" for parking spaces.

Wakeman says she is committed to communicating effectively with the community and to providing notice regarding parking or transportati on changes as far ahead as possible. "I'm committed to improving our customer service," she says.

To that end, Wakeman says the parking office will be open extended hours - from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. - during the first week of classes to accommodate members of the UConn community who haven't had a chance to register their cars or pick up parking decals.

Wakeman says although 94 percent of faculty and staff received their first or second choice of parking lot, she is creating a swap program that will eventually allow people who wish to change their parking assignment to trade spaces with others also interested in moving.

Wakeman, who joined the transportation division in June, also has begun to rebuild the department's Web site, adding or enhancing graphics picturing campus parking, shuttle bus routes and stops, and noting any changes affecting the University community as the plan continues to materialize. The site can be accessed through UConn's Web page or at http://vm.uconn.edu/~wwwuctp/

In addition to assigned parking lots, faculty, staff and students will notice other changes as they return to campus. These include a slight expansion of the central core restricted parking area, which now includes Stadium Road, adjacent to the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion; Auditorium Road, which passes between Jorgensen Auditorium and the School of Engineering complex; and the patio in front of the Field House.

Parking in the academic core is available for $300 per year. Reserved spaces are $600. A one-year pass for the garage is $400.

This year, faculty and staff will no longer be able to use student parking lots - for which students pay an annual fee - and tickets will be issued to non-students using the lots.

Wakeman urges people to park in the lots they have been assigned, to assist the department in gathering data to assess how the new assigned parking system is working. Beginning in the spring, tickets may be issued to faculty and staff who park in a lot other than their assigned location.

Other changes include the restoration of several dozen spaces in "S" lot, near the fine arts complex, as construction on the South Campus residence halls and a chiller plant to serve the building's water and heating needs concludes, and the loss of a parking lot near the UConn Dairy Bar, making way for construction of a new agricultural biotechnology building.

Richard Veilleux