City Removes Some Parking Downtown And By UTEP

Written for kvia.com by Anchor/Reporter Stephanie Valle

EL PASO, TX — Starting today, an estimated 100 parking spaces and meters are being eliminated Downtown and near UTEP.

The areas affected include Father Rahm and Fourth Streets between Santa Fe and El Paso, and Oregon between Schuster and Glory Road.

The disruption to parking by UTEP comes a month after the city had announced a renovation project to the sidewalks, gutters, and street lights that would begin in fall 2009. That project would have eliminated 70 spaces on Oregon.

The new project announced by city officials last week is the implementation of Sun Metro’s “SMART 101,” an express bus service. The SMART bus route will speed up transportation from Downtown to the UTEP area, dropping off passengers nearly 20 minutes faster than the previous route.

The quicker bus service did nothing to raise the spirits of several UTEP students we found returning to their cars on Oregon St. Friday afternoon.

“A lot of students depend on it because there’s usually parking available here in the afternoons and the morning,” said Nick Nillo.

Carrillo Craire was visibly frustrated, sighing before saying, “Well, I think it’s a shame for the students, because without the parking, the students are going to have to go to other extremes to find a space just to park.”

Lighted signs announcing the change to parking are already up on Oregon, and will remain there this week.

The new bus service will begin running routes from Downtown to UTEP Monday, March 23.