Building and Parking
Written by: Lauren Karp, Catherine Montelepre, Douglas Moreland
Buildings
In evaluating the relationship between Tulane's building policies and the environment, we were concerned with the use natural lighting, workplace hazards, energy efficiency of buildings, and how parking policies shape student and faculty commuting patterns.
According to sources at the physical plant the use of natural light does not come into consideration in construction. A walk accross campus reveals that although newer buildings such as the UC and the Reily Center make efficient use of natural light, other buildings, both new and old, such as Percival Stern and the Civil Engineering building do not.
The heating and cooling systems use in the buildings use approximately 61,601,197 kilowatt hours of electricity to heat and cool 3 million square feet. The gas consumption is 209,538.9 million cubic feet. This information is based on the fiscal year ending in July of 1996. There is a five million dollar budget for electricity and water, but the majority is used for electricity.
In conclusion, based upon this very percursory investigation, Tulane does not seem to be concerned with the environment when building new buildings. They do not concern themselves with natural lighting and no one was completely sure of how efficient the insulation was. We looked at the buildings on campus and examined the ones which utilized natural light. Unfortunately, budget limitations force Tulane to make the most of every dollar, and environmental considerations are not at the top of the list when it comes to building planning.
Parking
At the present time there are about 2,076 parking spaces available on campus. There are 4,000 parking permits for faculty, staff and students. As of now there are no definite plans to build more spaces or lots. They are having frequent meetings about the matter. There really isn't that much extra space. There are 802 spaces in Diboll parking garage. There are usually about 200 spaces empty in Diboll Complex daily except on days when there is a baseball game or some other type of special occasion. In the faculty parking lot there are about 330 parking spaces. In the faculty and staff parking lot there are about 568 parking spaces. In the faculty, staff, and student parking lot there are about 1198 spaces. These numbers may vary due to the construction being done on campus. They lost about 35 spaces due to construction in faculty and staff parking lot. All of these figures are taken from a report done in September of 1996.
Speaking from a students perspective, commuting students need an extra 15-20 minutes every morning just to find a parking spot. There are more students bringing cars each year and the amount of space used for parking is being used up. New parking lots will eventually be needed, which will force the administration to use the space which is now used for fields and quads as parking lots. This will diminish trees, grass and plants, which are all necessary parts of our environment. Tulane needs to save all the green areas it has. They are being quickly reduced due to all the new buildings and parking lots. The environment should be an important consideration when creating new areas on campus.
Unfortunately, little money and effort has been spent to develop an efficient off campus shuttling program. More parking spaces on campus means the destruction of grassy quads and undeveloped areas. More parking is more asphalt. That means loss of wildlife and the loss of the ability of the land to absorb rainfall. As a result, there will be increased storm water runoff and erosion in the future. In addition, as more students commute to campus, more energy is consumed and more toxins are emitted into the air.