Texas State University, 2022
Wallpaper Access 2025
The University of Houston Parking and Transportation Services was designated to be an Accredited Parking Organization (APO) by the International Parking Mobility Institute (IPMI) in 2024 which is a milestone that only 44 other parking programs have reached. To become an APO, an organization must demonstrate its commitment to ongoing evaluation and improvement of program outcomes through the implementation of industry best practices.
As Texas State works to grow its student population and prestige to be able to compete against schools like Texas Tech University and the University of Houston we also need to work on our public recognitions. Just because we know Texas State is the best, doesn't mean the rest of Texas does. I believe through the new parking improvements in the master plan, the study being conducted on Texas State's parking that is occurring during the 2025-2026 school year, and complete transparency moving forward, that Texas State University can become an APO.
While I acknowledge that Parking Services potentially being underfunded and the UPD merger has been keeping the attention of the Parking Services staff, the parking website not being updated since 2022 (almost 3 school years ago!) is completely unacceptable if we are going to become an APO.
The University of Houston (UH) also posts an annual Parking Report that updates their population on things like their completed projects, sustainable transportation alternatives, parking revenue, parking expenses, and so much more! While UH does have about 7,000 more students than Texas State, I still believe that their yearly updates, their regularly updated parking website, and their monthly parking news is a large part of why they were nominated as an APO.
I also believe that regularly maintaining our informative resources for parking would be a large first step to becoming more transparent and a first step towards becoming an APO.
1000 Logos, 2024
Texas Tech University is one of the most comparable schools to Texas State University population-wise and is also on the list of Emerging Research Universities (EMU). From their regularly updated website it is apparent that Texas Tech understands the need to be transparent about parking and the importance of keeping their parking resources up to date. The Texas Tech website has a whole section labeled "Transparency" where students are able to find things like permit costs, citations and enforcement information, appeals information, where parking money is used, price comparisons, and their transportation master plan.
All of these topics are things that I decided to include in my resource as I felt they provided enough information for individuals who just wanted to know how much they had to pay for parking while also still having enough information for individuals who wanted to dive deep into the network of parking like I did.
Although Texas State has been focusing on increasing their student population to be able to compete with larger schools like Texas Tech, we are still severely lacking in transparency when it comes to parking. No matter how large our universities population gets we will never be able to compete with larger schools if the foundation of transparency is not being prioritized.
SportsRecruits, 2025
Western Carolina University (WCU) used the company VHB to develop their 2024 parking report. VHB develops mobility solutions that are technologically advanced, reliable, and safe. Although WCU has 30,000 less students than Texas State, their parking services still prioritizes future planning and informing their student body. Their report is almost 50 pages long and only includes parking related information. Their report has a lot of useful information that is available for anyone interested in their parking program's future.
With the study being done on Texas State's parking in the 2025-2026 I am hopeful that Texas State will have the resources to create an improvement plan that they will be willing to share with the Texas State population.