There's a path that cuts through a set of parking lots on Shaw Lane. It's paved partly in brick and bordered by stone pillars and lined by trees. The path allows pedestrians to walk from the International Center to Anthony Hall across the street.
The lots themselves are roped off from the rest of the street by a lone string of chain links, and trees stand strategically amid the sea of blacktop. They stretch from Red Cedar Road all the way to Abrams Planetarium, making parking accessible in the center of campus for commuter students and visitors.
And 20 years from now, they'll all be gone.
In their place will be immense green space - a parklike environment complete with numerous walking paths, similar to the pillar-lined walkway presently in place.
This plan is just one of several proposed in the 2020 Vision plan, a project spanning two decades, where the university will make many drastic renovations to campus. Several parking lot changes are among those renovations. The plan maps out construction for a new parking ramp north of Morrill Hall, the removal of angled parking on the roadways, a revamping of the Bessey Hall parking ramp and the eventual removal of Shaw Lane to create a more student-friendly campus center.
"I'm hoping to be able to see it implemented as time goes on," said Jeff Kacos, Campus Park and Planning director. "It's a great foundation for the university's future."
Perfect vision
The 2020 Vision plan began with the realization that there had been a lack of a campus master plan for several decades. When planning began in 1999, an advisory committee came up with basic principles and guidelines for university improvements.
"We wanted to be sure, as we made individual decisions, that it really fit into a total concept for the university - to be certain that the decisions were not just separately sound, but right for the whole use of the grounds and the properties," MSU President M. Peter McPherson said in the spring. "It was a matter that evolved really as a concept."
The plan was set forth in two components. Component I, approved in March 2000, focused on the related issues of parking, transportation and open space. Component II, which began in fall 2000, dealt with future buildings and their relationship with land use and the environment. Both components make up the master plan.
The Master Plan Advisory Committee held open forums regarding the planning principles, welcoming feedback from different campus groups. Committee members said they involved faculty, staff and student groups, such as ASMSU, MSU'S undergraduate student government. Kacos said the master plan was widely publicized before the MSU Board of Trustees voted on it in December 2001.
"We tried to make sure everybody had the chance to give their voice," Kacos said. "It was a good learning process."
Once the master plan was finished, it was compiled and bound into a 151-page report. The advisory committee dissolved and the Campus Infrastructure Planning Work Group was formed to act as a planning commission and ensure the projects are meeting the guidelines outlined in the master plan.
Bill Latta, Facilities Planning and Space Management director, said in the spring that feedback was positive.
"Given that those thoughts remain consistent, I think we're in good shape," he said.
McPherson said the plan is in good shape for the future, as well.
"It has stood us well for this relatively short period of time, and I expect it will stand as well for a couple generations," he said.
Now that the plan is underway, committee members say it's important it doesn't get stuck on the shelf.
"I can't predict with a great deal of certainty all the projects that will occur over the next 20 years," Latta said, adding that the planning process is continuous, open to reevaluation and will be updated about every five years. "The planning process on this campus is not over because this book has been printed."
Striking the balance
In the early days of MSU, the campus only included the current north campus area. Academic buildings were situated around the present West Circle and East Circle drives and parking was established on the perimeter of campus - which has since become the academic core, an area that now includes the Engineering Building and Shaw Hall.
The shift of campus to the center throughout the years, with more buildings constructed and more students populating the area, and the growing use of cars to get around have led to an increased need for on-campus parking, work group members say.
"When we looked at the way the campus has been laid out, we really had to take consideration ? in the flow of the people that walk through the campus," MSU Trustee Dorothy Gonzales said in the spring, adding that she wanted to make sure parking wasn't hurting the environment around campus. "We really needed to bring it up to date, make it more attractive."
Along with the expansion of the university, more and more students are bringing cars to campus, said Mike Rice, deputy chief of police for the MSU Department of Police and Public Safety.
"Students today have incredibly active lifestyles," Rice said. "Our students are very mobile."
The idea is to remove the parking from the center of campus and move it to the current perimeters, work group members said. A new ramp is planned north of Morrill Hall with access only from Grand River Avenue. The ramp, called Ramp 6, will replace a surface lot. The ramp will have little benefit to students, however, and is being built to satisfy a deficit for faculty and staff parking on north campus, Rice said.
Affectionately called the "Grand River Ramp," Ramp 6 will provide nearly 700 spaces and feature a classic architectural style reminiscent of north campus. Construction is scheduled to begin this spring and will take about 22 months to finish, Rice said.
Urban and regional planning junior Jason Toorenaar said the success of the parking ramp will be determined by how it is designed.
"It all depends how they build it," he said. "If they build a rainbow ramp like across the street, it won't fit in very well."
The plan also includes a remodeling of the ramp between Bessey Hall and the Computer Center. Built in 1963, the ramp is not going to be safe much longer and changes could happen as early as five years from now, Kacos said.
"The structure is slowly deteriorating and as the structure of it worsens, it costs more to keep it in a usable condition," Kacos said. "At some point, you reach a stage where it's no longer a good investment to spend your money to keep this old structure habitable, when that same money could be invested in a new facility that would have all the modern designs."
Currently holding 565 spaces, the ramp will be torn down and rebuilt in the same location, adding a level and bringing the total number of spaces to about 700, Kacos said
Kacos said the cost for a surface lot is about $3,500, whereas a ramp can cost anywhere from $14,000 to $25,000.
"We can't afford to build ramps everywhere," Rice said. "They're just too expensive. They're too expensive to maintain."
The level of groundwater - which is very shallow in the area, Rice said - can affect how far underground ramps are built. The older architectural style of the proposed Ramp 6 will cost more than the ramps near Shaw Hall or the Communication Arts and Sciences Building. Tight space constraints at the ramp near Bessey Hall will affect the type of remodeling done. Full-spectrum lights are installed in the ramps, making them brighter for people, especially at night. All of these factors affect the cost of ramps, Rice said.
The price for the Grand River Ramp has not been estimated, partly because the work group has not decided on a final design, Rice said.
But the new ramp might further separate East Lansing and MSU, said associate history professor Anne Meyering.
"It will cut off the interaction between the town and the campus, which I think is healthy," Meyering said. "I'm very concerned that a building that size will create that feeling, create that sense of not being welcoming, not being accessible, not being open."
Meyering said a solution she would offer would be to build the entire structure underground or to consider other underground locations.
Meter rates in the ramps currently are $1.50 per hour, except the ramp near the Communication Arts and Sciences Building, which charges $1 per hour.
Additional plans for campus parking include the eventual removal of angled street spaces on north campus. Road usage continues to rise, and the number of accidents are also increasing, especially along West Circle Drive, Kacos said. The spots are hazardous and removal will occur in stages, he said.
Kacos also mentioned possibilities of parking on the east side of Farm Lane, the existing Agricultural Exposition site between Service and Mount Hope roads, and the state police site on Harrison Avenue.
Those involved with the plan say it's also a possibility that the commuter lot will need to be expanded again in the future. Rice said there are currently 2,200 spaces in the lot, and on some days, there could be as few as 30 empty ones. But it's the cheapest of all the lots, costing $65 this school year, Rice said.
"It's by far cheaper to park in the commuter lot and use the options, but people want to have choices," he said.
Nursing sophomore Elizabeth Miller said she has a car on campus but doesn't drive often because she lives close to her classes, adding that it can be difficult to park.
"I'm all for making the campus more beautiful, but it is such a big issue," Miller said. "It would be nice to have a more beautiful campus, but if we really do need parking, why mess with it?"
One of the ways the commuter lot might become more attractive to use is through the creation of an underpass near the railroad tracks on Farm Lane that will reduce the difficulties in parking there. Kacos said the project would cost an estimated $17 million but is still in the planning stages because MSU is working to get federal funding for the project.
More students would use the lot if they were not concerned with being late to class because of trains, said Tom Maleck, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and the university's traffic engineer.
"That would be one of the biggest improvements to safety on campus that we could ever make," Maleck said.
Work group members said they all agreed they need to balance the parking on the campus's perimeter with parking in the center.
"If we're able to work toward solving the problems of parking capacity, I think that that will take away a lot of the tension of parking system users," Kacos said.
The future of Shaw Lane
In developing the master plan five years ago, the advisory committee asked questions of students, faculty and staff members during forums. The questions called for open-ended responses and posed questions such as, "If there was one thing you like the most about campus, what would it be and why?"
The response from an overwhelming majority of people was north campus - the area by Beaumont Tower, Latta said.
The green space in that area was labeled as "sacred" by a landscape architect in the early 1900s, who argued that the area should never be marred by developers. With so many lasting memories of north campus, work group members said they hope to create them elsewhere.
"The green space plan was carefully conceived," Latta said. "We'd like to extend those green space memories to south campus."
The 2020 Vision plan proposes removing Shaw Lane starting from Red Cedar Road to the Abrams Planetarium and establishing in its place green lawn and walking paths - and no parking lots.
"Decade by decade, you need to try to look ahead and see how it all fits," McPherson said. "And without taking a big view and a long view, there's no way you would be able to plan for a green space south of the river. It would tend to be eaten away by incremental decisions."
The central campus area includes the parking lots in front of the Engineering Building and Anthony Hall, as well as two other lots near Shaw Hall and Abrams Planetarium.
"That space is much too valuable to use for parking," Rice said. "In the long run, it's positive.
"We need to free up the space currently occupied by parking in the center of campus to further the academic mission of the university."
No-preference freshman Drue Hemingway said although he doesn't drive on campus, it's difficult to have a car here.
"When my friends come down here to visit, it's impossible to find a parking spot. We have to pay a certain amount for guest parking, and we have to walk a ways to get to the cars," Hemingway said. "It's pointless to even have a car down here."
The parking lots in front of the Engineering Building and Anthony Hall will be the last to go because they are the newest of the series of lots in that area, Kacos said, adding they have about 12 years of use left.
Latta said the first lot to go would be the lot outside Shaw Hall that faces Farm Lane, adding that he hopes it will be removed this semester. The four remaining lots, he said, will go when they have aged to the point where it would cost more to maintain them than it would to rebuild them.
The lots will be removed, but the future of South Shaw Lane and a possible ramp near Red Cedar Road are still in discussion, work group members say.
Possibilities for South Shaw Lane include making it a two-way street or allowing buses and service vehicles only. If that happens, Wilson Road could serve as the main east-to-west campus thoroughfare.
"We have other roads that people can drive on," Maleck said. "It would certainly eliminate a lot of conflicts between pedestrians and cars. And that's one of our goals."
The green space proposal will, for the most part, be beneficial, journalism freshman Dan Tatro said.
"It'll make congestion elsewhere, but it'll be good for students to walk to class," Tatro said. "It'll definitely be interesting to see what it looks like."
Traffic on Shaw Lane is about the highest on campus, according to numbers provided by the engineering department. About 24,560 cars drive on Shaw Lane each day. Numbers for Farm Lane and Wilson Road are less, at 17,980 and 17,360, respectively.
Maleck said he attributes people looking for parking to the high volume of cars on the road and says the green space proposal would "ease Shaw tremendously."
"It's going to greatly improve the quality of life on campus," he said.
McPherson said when his generation of students returns to campus, they're pleased to see that the area by Beaumont Tower remains virtually untouched. He added that campus has grown since then and south campus is more populated.
"We have the circle, we have the space along the river and the idea was you could really join these together in some extent by the creation of the green space," McPherson said. "The green space in the middle of campus makes the campus attractive and very livable.
"I hope the day will come that we have green space over there that has the same specialness to it that the circle does."
