NAU students should rise to campus parking challenges
Comments
by Shaun El-Ters on March 5, 2009 at 4:00 am
Parking Services is able to continue this behavior because they have gone unchecked and unchallenged for all too many years.
Is it just me, or has Parking Services been especially vigilant lately? It seems like whether I am parking in a vacated parking lot at 8:30 at night for work or stopping at a building to drop some papers off, I have a ticket waiting for me when I get back.
This seemingly omniscient presence is responsible for Parking Services being the most maligned establishment on campus for the past few years. However, their actions lately are getting a little ridiculous. Parking Services appears to be operating with little to no accountability, demonstrating they care far more about the bottom line than the students of Northern Arizona University.
They first demonstrated this indifference toward students by raising the price of parking permits significantly every year. Since I arrived at NAU in 2005, the parking permits have jumped up considerably. It now costs $167 for a parking permit that will only last a mere semester.
I could understand this increase in price, especially during times of economic crisis, but there is a fundamental problem with these parking permits: The permit isn’t actually permission to park; it’s permission to look for a spot to park. Often, you will be unable to find an adequate parking spot, thus nullifying the hundreds of dollars you spent on that sticky windshield tag. Despite the inefficient permits, the university continues to raise their price so they now rival the cost of books, making the permits one of the biggest investments for a student on campus.
I understand there is a need for Parking Services, and I agree with many of their policies. Restricting parking during the peak hours of the school day? All for it. Parking is bad enough as it is already, and the problem would only be compounded if there were no regulation. However, I also feel like they continually cross the line and promote policies with little concern to how difficult or unfair these regulations are to students.
Of course, this problem with parking, and the general congestion on campus, is all a result of NAU’s desire to emulate other big universities like the University of Arizona and Arizona State, despite having nowhere near the resources to support that endeavor. However, NAU’s failures at attaining unrealistic and unwanted (at least by the students) ambitions is no excuse to crack down on parking policies at the students’ expense. The university should be spending money and resources to accommodate their current students, not throwing them under the bus to attract future prospects.
The Lumberjack has addressed the parking situation on campus numerous times, and we have written many pieces on what NAU needs to do to solve the parking problem. This isn’t one of those pieces. At this point, we are more interested in what students themselves need to do to stop these harsh regulations.
Parking Services is able to continue this behavior because they have gone unchecked and unchallenged for all too many years. The first step, then, is for students to become aware of the problem and do something about it. Don’t buy a permit unless you have to. There is plenty of space on the periphery of campus to park if you are willing to walk a little, especially on North Campus. Avoid parking during the peak hours, and take advantage of the three transit parking lots that allow parking after 4:30. And, most importantly, don’t allow yourself to get ticketed. Those $90 hits build up fast, and they are the only way Parking Services can force you to pay.
If students stop ignoring the problem and do something productive to change it, then hopefully we will see a shift in Parking Services’ priorities from money to the students themselves.
3 Comments
While I don’t agree with everything Parking Services does I will applaud them for actually ticketing people who need to be ticketed. I cannot say anything about the prices of parking passes or the price of tickets but there are plenty of places to park on campus if you a willing to walk a few extra steps. The recently built parking garage continually sits nearly vacant throughout the day. People for some reason feel the need to drive to and from classes every day congesting the streets on campus and then complain about how hard it is to get to class on time because of it. There are many alternative to driving everyday; walking, riding your bike, taking the bus, car pool, etc. These all can dramatically decrease the traffic and you can still be on time. By leaving your vehicle during the day you can guarentee yourself a spot on your return. If you’re just running into a building to drop something off find a spot to park and you won’t get a ticket, when you park in a fire lane you will. This is a dangerous act in of itself, you are then obstructing rescue services from reaching the building which in the event of their need can cause dire results. So when you need a place to park just follow the rules and you won’t have to worry about parking services.
I had my car booted at 8:30pm at night!!!! When I came out at 9pm ready to go home, I realized the green sticker they had left on my car had lots of important information blacked out. With a Sharpie marker. Seeing the towing information marked out, I decided since it was late at night my car would not be towed, and I would be able to deal with this situation in the morning. At 8am I strolled into parking services to pay all my fines. They informed me that infact my car had been towed at 10pm. That it was my fault for not contacting them sooner. I asked how I was supposed to contact them when their workers obviously blacked out all the important information on my green ticket (Which I had in hand as proof to show them)
The girl simply stated, “Well atleast you now know our policy for next time”
CROCK OF S***. Parking Services needs a checks and balance system, they abuse their power.
I have heard i lot of mumbling and grumbling about the vehicle and parking situation here on campus; and it does appear that parking services has been on the war path as of late. But isnt it their job to cite people who are parking on campus without permits, or citing those who are parking in places where they shouldn’t be? I transferred here from the University of Washington Seattle Campus, where there are more than 60,000 (sixty thousand)enrolled, and there are only 10,000 parking places. Parking permits at UW are nearly 600 per quarter, not semester or year as we have it here. To top it off, they have a dedicated parking patrol, that does its rounds randomly every hour while students are in class, with an average ticket of 50-75 dollars. Our small prices that we pay if we are unfortunate enough to get one are nothing in comparison.
Nau’s parking staff needs to be instructed as to proper protocol in ticketing. I do not have a parking permit, and thus seldom drive onto campus, but when i do, i park in a metered parking spot, and i always pay my fare. As of late it seems they are standing next to my meter waiting for it to say expired so they can throw that ticket on my car. No warning, no chalk mark on my tire… just a nice ticket. They need to understand that my professors dont always let me out on time, nor do they take into account i have a social life… and perhaps i want to say hello to a friend as i a busily walking back to my car to drop another dollar in quarters into the machine.