At any other school, parking can often be considered an administrative afterthought, but at Branson, the parking situation is anything but. Parking at Branson has become increasingly complex in recent years and has become a focal point for expansion negotiations with the Town of Ross. In an interview, Director of Operations Todd Bickel shed light on his role and what goes on behind the scenes of parking at Branson.
“I manage and put together all the forms to help build carpools and for all of the solo drivers,” Bickel said. “I also decide who gets to park on campus based on, you know, the point system that’s in the handbook that I update yearly.”
Bickel made it clear there was one thing that makes parking at Branson more difficult than some other nearby schools.
“The main driver of everything is that our use permit with the Town of Ross is one in which we can’t add any on-campus parking,” he explained. “It specifically states we cannot have more than 114 parking spots total. And with all our faculty and staff that park on campus and with our visitor spots, we have only 38 that are reserved for student carpools.
For a student body of 377, having a mere 38 spots for students is a logistical nightmare. Since there is such a finite amount of spots for students, Branson has developed a point system to reward students carpooling the most students.
“When it comes to the decision-making of where I hand out parking, it’s honestly by points. So we start with the lower lot because that’s the more desirable lot for students. Those with the most points are assigned there. And then we move from down there to up the hill.”
When assigning and configuring parking assignments for the students even the smallest of details are thoroughly taken into consideration.
“If [a student has] a large car and they’re trying to park at one of the spots down by the gym, there are some size issues. And even up here in the upper lot, larger cars can be a little harder to back out,” Bickel said. “We try to be mindful to say, okay, if you have a Subaru Outback or something you’re going to fit there much better than, you know, a Ford Expedition.”
All of this may seem minor in the grand scheme of things, but for Branson, every aspect of parking has to be handled with the utmost attention.
“We have to take this traffic management very seriously. If we don’t hit our counts, and we don’t do this correctly, we can lose a tranche of 25 students — and that has a significant impact on a lot of things.”
Indeed, Bickel goes beyond the Branson community to ensure everything runs smoothly with the Town of Ross and its members.
“I do work closely with them,” he said. “I take neighbor feedback once or twice a year when I meet with the neighbors to talk about traffic. I’m also on a monthly Zoom call with the Town of Ross to see what their feedback is as well.” He added, “So far, with our current management plan, they’ve been very happy with it.”
One of the main reasons there have been plenty of restrictions placed on Branson by the Town of Ross is ongoing student body expansion. When asked about how the growth in student body will affect parking at Branson, Bickel said, “For now, there’s going to be no change. In fact, we might reduce parking because we have to allow for faculty and staff to have the chance to park on campus.”
“Now, that being said, we would like to continue to have students parking on campus,” he added. “We offer $1,000 stipends for faculty and staff to park off-site […] and then if they want to do it for two years, we’ll give $2,500 towards a bike. We’re trying to make sure we have programs to encourage faculty and staff to get to school in different ways.”
With little to no change planned for on-campus parking, Bickel said that off-campus parking could be how Branson adapts to student expansion.
“We’ve secured extra spaces at College of Marin and we have 50 spots over there that we pay for. And then we have 24 spots at the Redlands and seminary,” he said. “It’s going to be a priority where carpools are going to first be on campus […] then they’re going to be at St. Anselm’s, and then solo drivers will park at either College of Marin or the Redlands.”
Although this is Branson’s current plan for the coming years, there is a possibility for bigger changes to be made in the long-term if negotiations open up again with the Town of Ross.
“We’re going to have to renegotiate anyway with the Town of Ross because we’re going to be making a lot of changes and they have to have some sort of approval,” Bickel said. “We might be able to also negotiate a parking change. Is it guaranteed? No, we would have to make our case with our mitigation of traffic.”
“I think if you asked faculty, staff, parents and students one of the main things they would like to change about Branson, I think it would be on-campus parking. So, it would be something we would be potentially open to negotiating with the town as well. I do know that the architect and planning firm for our master plan definitely are looking at areas to make parking a little more centralized.”
Branson, though tasked with regionally specific parking issues, shares many of the same parking problems as other schools in Marin County.
“You know, I’ve talked to the operations managers at San Domenico and at Marin Academy, because we’re all traffic-managed, and we all kind of have limited parking,” Bickel said. “We definitely have had meetings, talked about strategies, talked about what’s worked for them, what’s working for us and things like that.”
Parking year after year has become more complicated at Branson, but the attention to detail that members of the administration like Bickel have had raises hope that the situation will improve in years to come.
“In my year and a half here, I know that parking is an important issue, and I know that getting the spots for seniors — that’s an exciting moment for them. I hope to continue to be able to give them the spots that we have, but, ultimately, I would really like to try to negotiate with the town. That’s going to be priority number one for me to make sure that we can have good parking and those benefits.”
