2.5.2025
UVA Health Blue Ridge Poison Center Sees Drop in Opioid and THC Edibles Calls
2.3.2025
Parking and Transportation Update
Thank you to everyone who has partnered with us to help alleviate some of our parking challenges. Your support has made a meaningful difference in ensuring that our patients can find parking and arrive at their appointments on time.
Some team members have raised concerns about the capacity of the Emmet and Ivy Garage (EIG) and shuttle wait times. Below, we want to share important updates and resources to help address these concerns.
Emmet and Ivy Garage Capacity
The Emmet and Ivy Garage (EIG) has a total of 1,227 parking spaces. Daily vehicle counts conducted by Parking & Transportation (P&T) between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. regularly show fewer than 20 vehicles in the garage, meaning that there is room for approximately 1,200 UVA Health commuters each day.
- In January 2025, an average of 995 vehicles parked at EIG daily.
- P&T will continue monitoring parking capacity closely. If EIG reaches capacity or if other urgent commuting updates arise (such as weather-related changes or route detours), you will receive updates via text message.
Shuttle Information
All UTS buses, including the Redline and Blueline commuter routes, can be tracked in real time using the TransLoc app (download here) or on the web. Recent adjustments to the Blueline route have shortened travel times to University Medical Center:
- Blueline buses arrive every 5-7 minutes during peak periods.
- Travel time from EIG to University Medical Center is 10-15 minutes, depending on time of day and traffic.
Virtual Parking Permits
Since Summer 2024, all UVA parking permits have been virtual. Please ensure your license plate is up to date in the UVA Parking Portal and linked to your current permit. Log in to the portal using your UVA Health computing ID. To reduce the likelihood of receiving a citation, please be sure to have a valid commuter parking permit with the correct license plate numbers linked to that permit
Stay Informed
To receive direct text notifications from P&T/UTS about parking updates, route changes, and alerts, text Health to 434.939.4307.
For any additional parking-related questions, please email parking@virginia.edu.
We appreciate your patience and cooperation as we continue to enhance parking and transportation resources for our team. Thank you for all that you do for our patients and each other.
The article states “The Emmet and Ivy Garage (EIG) has a total of 1,227 parking spaces. Daily vehicle counts conducted by Parking & Transportation (P&T) between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. regularly show fewer than 20 vehicles in the garage, meaning that there is room for approximately 1,200 UVA Health commuters each day.”
How many commuters are there on a daily basis, and how many students end up parking in the garage as well? When we received the alert that 11th street garage was going to be monitored more closely, suddenly there were a lot fewer spaces available in EIG. The average number of cars there daily in January might not match the actual number of permit holders.
Thanks for the comment, Whitney. We reached out to Scott Silsdorf, Director, Parking and Transportation, and he said, “In addition to UVA Health commuters, several other faculty and staff have access to the Emmet Ivy Garage and may account for some of the additional vehicles noticed in the garage, particularly since the beginning of the semester. The January numbers cited in the article are the total number of cars in the garage, although the vast majority are health commuters.”
—Brian Murphy, editor
I’d like to discuss my personal and my colleagues experience with the Blue line specifically from Emmet/Ivy during the 8am-9:30 time frame.
The article states:
“Blueline buses arrive every 5-7 minutes during peak periods.
Travel time from EIG to University Medical Center is 10-15 minutes, depending on time of day and traffic.”
This is consistently not our experience. We have screen shots of the buses being clustered around the hospital and taking upwards of 20 minutes for the bus to show up.
The commute from the garage routinely takes 20-30 minutes from garage to hospital because traffic is so congested.
I personally leave my home 55min early (despite living less than 8 miles away) and even catching the 8:30 bus results in me frequently clocking in late. (This is not isolated to me; my colleagues are affected daily too)
I completely agree!! I have also had issues with the buses being found bunched up together which has resulted in longer wait times at each stop. Both the morning and evening commutes have been impacted by this! Even trying to leave midday is not adequate due to less buses running and drivers waiting at main stops to allow for more passengers. This creates issues for people who have appointments out of the area.
Is there any plan to compensate UVA employees for the additional time directly resultant of the lack of on-site parking?
Using the statistics provided in this article, parking in EIG and taking the blue line should take 15-22 minutes 2x a day, totaling an additional 30-44 minutes per day, or 2.5-3.7 hours per week (assuming 5-day work weeks) of time spent due to parking policies for UVA Health employees. As one example, the median hourly wage of RNs in Virginia is ~$37 per hour, meaning that these employees are spending $92.50-$136.90 worth of time per week (~$400 per month) commuting this distance.
It would be great to see UVA’s commitment to creating a supportive atmosphere for staff extend to ensuring that ALL time spent resulting from UVA’s policies is fairly compensated.
I timed the afternoon ride on the “Blue bus” in the afternoon on 2/3/25 as I heard about the quoted “10-15 minute” time for the ride to the garage. From beginning to end (hospital to EIG), it took 30 minutes (this is double the quoted time). A good suggestion may be for upper management to ride the buses during peak hours, when most people are using them, to understand employee’s frustrations and come up with some solutions.
What is the Health Systems plan as to when the EIG garage is completely booked with “permit assigned” employees? Will another garage/parking lot be available to accommodate this continuous growing need? Also, can the Health System/University work with the City of Charlottesville to control heavy traffic intersections with timed light cycles to allow more traffic flow at times of congestion (example 7:30am-8:30am and 4:00-6:00pm)? Emmet St at JPA is the worst intersection in the morning.