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Parking, CARTA, carpooling options update Planning for the campus’s newest parking facility, MUSC’s Bee Street Garage, continues with the 1,500-space facility scheduled to open in mid-October. May’s open enrollment period for parking space availability has closed. During this time, Office of Parking Management (OPM) received 1,340 registrations for the Bee Street Garage facility. June—July The month of June is scheduled as a period for registrants to confirm that their names are on the Bee Street Garage assignment list and that their hire dates are correct (original hire date with MUSC/MUHA/UMA with no break in service). Visit http://appserve.musc.edu/ParkitWaitingList/.   If corrections are needed, employees should notify OPM via e-mail at parkit@musc.edu. July—August The order of assignment (in hire date order) will be established by July 1. Notification of parking assignment opportunity will be sent to employees via e-mail.   OPM will send participants e-mail verification. If an employee does not respond to the first e-mail, OPM will send a second e-mail. Failure by employees to respond will be considered a declination, and therefore, will warrant removal from the assignment enrollment list. August—September During this two-month period, employees who have accepted an assignment will be formally set up within the OPM system (transfer, new parker in system, etc.). OPM will issue decals and update changes to employee records for those who will be assigned to the Bee Street Garage. Parking decals and information will be mailed to participating employees. (Exception: employees who are not currently registered in the parking system will need to come to the parking office to register.)   Within the next year, all gated parking areas will be changed to accept the MUSC ID as the parking access card. The new Bee Street Garage will be the first facility to employ this feature. Other OPM accomplishments 1) Recently completed is energy-efficient lighting upgrades to the Rutledge Tower (employee) Garage.   “These lighting upgrades are the third of three scheduled upgrades completed in the past few years for OPM’s plans to improve and upgrade all of parking management’s facilities and is funded solely through revenues from MUSC’s parking system,” said Melinda Anderson, OPM director. “It’s a reinvestment into the parking system. OPM receives no state appropriations. Everything done is dependent upon user fees.”   2) Installation and completion of two additional elevators in the Courtenay Drive Garage as of June 6. This adds rooftop service to the seventh floor serving ART. Additional lighting upgrades and new signage continues. In addition, management changed garage operations from central to exit cashiering, similar to other on-campus patient-visitor garage locations. 3) Addition of one elevator to the Ashley-Rutledge Parking Garage, which will be completed in late July. Canopies were added to protect the garage stairwells during inclement weather. 4) The Rutledge Tower surface lot, adjacent to the Ashley-Rutledge Parking Garage, will return to full capacity following construction and will continue to be dedicated to accessible parking. 5) Upon completion of the Ashley-Rutledge Parking Garage elevator project, upgrades to the ground floor lobby is being planned to include a dropped ceiling, new flooring, lighting, etc. 6) Repairs to the President Street Garage are under way. Work will soon commence and will require about seven months for completion. There is no structural risk to the facility. The project consists of repairs to broken connections between the floor slabs on the down ramps and repair of the concrete topping on ramps. 7) OPM has contracted with a parking design engineering specialist to conduct condition appraisals of all MUSC parking garages. A preliminary meeting has been conducted and a proposal will be submitted. Surveys are expected to begin in late June. Parking Garage 1, which was opened in 1974, is the oldest parking structure on campus. Free CARTA extended to CARTA Express Starting July 1, MUSC employees and students will have free access to ride Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA) Express as well as the CARTA system routes. This service is a $64 per month value per person for MUSC participants.   Employees and students only need to show their MUSC ID badge to ride. It’s been more than a year since CARTA and MUSC joined efforts to support employees and students with a money-saving, stress-free solution to their weekday work commute. CARTA Express provides park-and-ride transportation ser-vice between downtown Charleston and North Charleston, West Ashley, Mount Pleasant (two stops) and James Island.      Meanwhile, CARTA’s plan to expand to a Summerville route continues. A proposal has been submitted to the S.C. State Legislature, Town of Summerville and Dorchester County for funding. Carpool Employees who establish a carpool group (two or more people) can work with OPM  to coordinate on-campus parking. The group shares the cost of gas, cost of the parking space and convenience of accessible parking at an on-campus location.   Employees can utilize the MUSC Carpool Matching Program where they can network with other employee/student riders about carpooling groups and other information. Visit http://carpool.musc.edu/.     Friday, June 13, 2008 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.