On Monday, more than 20,000 University of Hawai'i-Manoa students will return for a new semester, and with them the perennial concerns of housing, parking and traffic. Also on that day, another 20,000-plus students at other public colleges and universities will return to the classroom.

Many students are dreading the daily traffic nightmare and scramble for a parking stall on campus or neighboring streets.

UH officials have taken measures to slightly relieve the parking crunch, but they acknowledge that the decades-long problem will never be completely solved.

"The university recognizes this is an ongoing issue and we're continuing to work on solutions," said Kathy Cutshaw, vice chancellor of administration at the Manoa campus. She pointed out that UH-Manoa is a commuter school, with most of its students and faculty living off campus.

As about 3,000 UH-Manoa students start moving into residence halls today, officials say, the housing crunch doesn't appear as dire as in the past. Fewer than 400 students are on the waiting list for a dorm room, far fewer than the more than 1,400 who were turned away three years ago.

"I was one of those 1,400 students on the waiting list a few years ago," said Christina Stidman, president of the Associated Students of UH-Manoa. "The reason there is such a decrease in demand for housing this year is because (residence halls) have been neglected for so long and students don't want to live there."

Stidman said she is hopeful that planned repair and renovation of existing dorms coupled with construction of the new Frear Hall, expected to be completed next fall, will increase student interest in on-campus housing.

"There are benefits to living on campus," she said.

Two weeks ago, the waiting list for a dorm room was more than 800 students, said Alan Yang, dean of students at UH-Manoa. However, many students higher up in priority for a bed did not complete the application process or place their deposit, allowing officials to whittle down the wait-list by more than 400 names, he said.

$40 MILLION OVERHAUL

Students moving into dorms this week are arriving during the first round of an expected $40 million facelift of the aging residence halls.

"These halls are more than 30 years old and it's widely known that they're in need of major refurbishment," Yang said.

With the $71 million construction of Frear Hall going on at the same time, Yang said, the next two years will mark a new era for student housing on the university's flagship campus.

Nicole Whitten, a UH sophomore from Spokane, Wash., lived on campus over the summer in the Hale Noelani apartment complex. She welcomed the news that more renovations are planned.

"They need it," Whitten said. "I lived in Hale Aloha last year and they're not very well maintained."

She said more students would want to live in the residence halls if the conditions improved.

"Some of my friends back home didn't want to come here because they heard the dorms were so bad," she said.

Much of the larger overhauls of the facilities, including a $25 million plan to completely renovate the four Hale Aloha freshman towers, will have to wait at least a year until Frear Hall is complete, Yang said.

Once Frear Hall is built, the university will be able to temporarily close older residence halls as they undergo renovation.

The start of the new semester at Manoa also means the beginning of the parking crunch, on and off campus.

Just as it did last year, the university is opening an additional 100 parking stalls for dorm residents in an attempt to limit the spillover of cars into surrounding neighborhoods, said Cutshaw. Students will have to buy a $134-a-semester parking permit to use those stalls.

According to a UH survey, about 20 percent of students who live on campus have a car. With only about 140 parking stalls at the residence halls, that means more than 400 cars are left to spill out onto Dole Street and surrounding neighborhoods.

For most commuter students, back-to-school means driving to campus early in the morning and either fighting for a stall in the lower campus parking structure or searching streets for a spot.

"What parking?" said Lauren Hallonquist, a graduate student in urban planning. "I don't even bother with trying to park on campus."

PARKING METERS

Hallonquist spends $420 a year to park at St. Francis School and walks to campus every day.

"It's far, but it's better than circling the streets," she said.

The university plans to install parking meters around the campus periphery that will be designated as visitor stalls, Cutshaw said. Those aren't expected to be installed until later in the semester. The stalls will help those who only need to be on campus for a short time, she said.

Bert Narita, chair of the St. Louis Neighborhood Board, said residents always brace for the congestion of cars along neighborhood streets as the semester begins.

"We continually express our concern to the university," Narita said. "The areas that are affected are mostly Dole Street and Frank Street right below St. Louis Heights."

Cutshaw said members of the student government plan on passing out fliers to residents, who can use them to place on cars that are parked illegally on their street.

The university does have a 900-stall parking structure in its long-range plans, she said. But that's at least five years away.

"As an urban campus, parking is always going to be a problem," Cutshaw said.

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.