Parking on campus: questions answered

Parking can be a source of controversy on any college campus, but understanding the system is the first step to easing parking anxiety.
 

“Parking is one of those relative kinds of things in terms of satisfaction,” said Mark Fox, vice president for student development. “No one is completely happy with it … Given the size of our campus, compared to other college campuses, it's a very reasonable parking situation here.”

According to Joe Whitaker, vice president for business and finance, parking tickets have brought in about $13,000 per year over the last four years. Tickets this fiscal year have yielded over $12,000 so far.

Ticket fines may be given for either $20 or $40, depending on the offense, but if the ticket is not paid within seven days it may be posted to the offender’s account and another $10 penalty is added to the original sum.

Taking these figures into consideration, every year as few as 325 and as many as 650 tickets are given out to students whose cars are parked in a no parking area, improper lot, fire lane, service vehicle area or handicapped spaces.
 

According to the student handbook, fines can also be given out for moving violations or unregistered cars.
Whitaker said the money goes to the college’s unrestricted fund, which is the general fund out of which the operating expenses of the college are paid including faculty and staff salaries, utility bills, maintenance and housekeeping, and all other daily expenses.
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“The purpose of writing tickets is not to generate revenue. The purpose is to add order to what could be chaos,” Fox said.

Fox, who oversees fine enforcement and payment, said the fines were raised from $5 to $20 and $40 four years ago. Consequently, he estimates that there has been up to a 25 percent decrease

in the number of tickets issued since the fines increased.

“What we found was then that the fines were so small that people were willing to take the risk,” Fox said.
“Now, the fines are significant enough that it’s a deterrent, and that’s what we want.”

Individuals who want to appeal a parking ticket must fill out an appeal form from the Student Development Office, and then a committee of two to three people reviews the appeal. If the appeal is refused, the individual may then appeal the ticket to Fox.

Fox said that when reviewing a ticket, the committee takes into consideration an individual’s lack of knowledge of the parking system in the first couple weeks of the fall semester or if some kind of emergency was happening when the ticket was issued. Fox says that they also consider errors made by ticket writers.

“It may be that our people made an error and have written the ticket inappropriately,” Fox said.

If the appeal is successful, the individual is notified that the appeal has been upheld and the ticket is voided. The ticket fine may also be reduced, depending on the nature of the offense.
Fox said there is no stated policy for reviewing tickets because of the variable nature of the ticketing offenses but said that most tickets are upheld.

Some students do not think that the parking policies should be enforced during special events, such as family weekend and basketball games, when parking becomes scarce.

Freshman Tom Jones said he received his ticket for parking in the white zone in front of Hart Hall during the basketball games of family weekend.

“(The ticket writer) shouldn’t have given me one that weekend because there were so many people on campus that parking was full,” Jones said.

Fox said he, along with Leonard Beattie, Joe Whitaker, President Jeanes, and campus security review the parking situation each summer, sometimes working to find areas that are unclear and then adding markings.

While the student handbook states designated loading zones, such as the ones in front of Hart and Sutton Halls, have a 15-minute time limit, students do not always read these instructions and may receive no guidelines about the time limit when registering their vehicle.
Jones said he was unsure about the length of time allowed for parking in that area because it is not posted.

At registration students receive vehicle/sticker categories and information on where their sticker allows them to park. Categories and their colors include: freshmen, yellow; commuters, orange; faculty/staff, green; sophomore through senior females, red; sophomore through senior males, blue; and married student housing, red.

From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. vehicles must park in specific lots that correspond with the stickers, but after 5 p.m. the lot restrictions are lifted until the next morning.