General Parking Information

Employees can park in designated RISD parking lots/areas on a first-come, first-serve basis, but only after obtaining an annual parking permit. There is currently no charge for an employee parking permit. RISD reserves the right to reevaluate and restore parking fee structures for upcoming fiscal cycles.

RISD does not provide designated student parking. Students who need overnight parking and/or a permanent parking space need to make private arrangements.

If you have a medical accommodation that requires you to have a vehicle on campus, contact Disability Support Services to request approval for a perking permit.

Visitors can access metered and timed parking along Benefit Street, North/South Main Street or at various Metropark locations nearby. You may also find on-street parking in other areas of College Hill—just pay attention to signs for restrictions.

Visitors are prohibited from parking in RISD employee lots, with the exception of legally documented handicapped guests.

Metropark provides guest parking at the SoMain lot located at the corner of Power and South Water Street and at the 199 Canal Street Lot.

DPS can provide visitors with guest parking permits. You may pick up guest parking passes in person at our South Hall office (30 Waterman Street). We also provide blank permits to hosting offices via interoffice mail upon request. Requesters must fill in the guest parking permit completely. Metropark rejects all incomplete permits.

After parking, visitors must inform the Metropark attendant of their guest status and then collect a permit from the requesting department prior to departure. Hosting departments/offices must give the yellow and bottom copies of the permit to guests and keep the top copy for their records. Guests must turn in the guest parking permit to the attendant upon exiting the lot.

Hosts should contact us if you are hosting a large number of guests at a specific time. We will try to coordinate with Metropark to secure the necessary number of reserved spaces for your group. Metropark may also offer a special reduced large group rate.

Any RISD community member or guest with a state-issued disability parking placard and/or license plate can park in the designated accessible parking spaces available in specific RISD parking lots. If you are a faculty or staff member, you should still apply for a RISD parking permit so that you can still park in spaces not designated as accessible parking.

If all accessible parking spaces are occupied, please let us know. We’ll review our capacity needs.

Accessible parking spaces on campus are covered by city and state parking regulations. Any car parked illegally in accessible parking will immediately be ticketed and towed. Repeat misuse of accessible parking spaces will result in revocation of campus parking privileges.