Errr! Stupid University Parking Departments!!
 

So...here is the deal....I cruise to go and park my car in a lot, where they meter it until four o'clock p.m...I get there at about 3:50 or so and head to class, I forget my book, so I run back to the car. Upon my return at a few minutes after four, there is a ticket on my car with the time 3:59!!! 1 minute OMG!!! These panzis have gotten me for 3 tickets in the last 2 weeks, and they are 15 bucks a pop! Not only do they try to get you for everything you are worth by tuition and outrageous book prices, they also get you on unbeliveably high tickets...blah...blah.....It's bogus...so so bogus.....

d

Post a perimeter defense around your car, like a trip flare that douses them with something noxious but unharmful:)

Hmm...do you go to LSU?

Parking here is an absolute nightmare. Don't even THINK about leaving the on-campus apartments after 7 pm - you'll have to park in the "rape lot" upon your return. That's if you're lucky and there are still spaces out there.

We're not allowed to park at parking meters. To do that you need to get a visitor's tag. Once, my boyfriend parked at a meter and it expired. So he got 3 tickets: 1 for expired meter, 1 for unregistered (because he didn't have a hang tag) and 1 for out of zone (because he was a student that was parked at a meter). Another time, he had a rental car because his was in the shop and he had left his parking tag in the car. He kept getting unregistered tickets. Somehow, they credited the tickets to him. Apparently, they ran the plate of the rental car and traced it back to him through the insurance company that was paying for the car, and put the tickets, at $35 a pop on his bill. :rolleyes:

There are supposed to be two parking lots on my campus for students and visitors; however, that has since changed. I was parked by the library and received a ticket the following friday for being parked there. I'm fighting that ticket because it wasn't there on that thursday. That friday I wasn't parked on school grounds which meant they had to search for the car. The car belongs to my roommate who is a graduate of the school up here on business. This really irritated me. It's bad enough the cost for a decal has been raised and now the price of the ticket has been raised to $50.00. :mad: My school is really money-hungry!

50 big ones for a parking ticket? GOOD LORD THAT'S A LOT OF MONEY!!!!

Oh my...well I go to school in Miwaukee and parking here is complete insanity, you can't park on campus without paying our of your booty for parking cotst, and tickets are hell too, you cant' park off campus because the campus cops and surrounding district station are just as bad. I'm just going to buy a moped and bring it to class with me :)

d

hahahaha a buddy of mine does that...He leaves it near one of the suite-style rez and locks the wheel so no one can do anything. It's also hidden, so those bastards in protection can't ticket him.

Parking at UCF is ridiculous. You pay an arm and a leg for a decal but there's not even close to enough parking spaces for each car. You have to leave 45 to 30 minutes before class begins to get a parking space in the dirt lot that is 2 miles from your class. :mad: Here's my favorite story about one the "gentlemen" from parking services:
I lived on-campus my freshman year. There's a faculty lot right in front of my dorm. About a mile away is the student lots. It was eleven o'clock and I had just come home from the 24 hour Wal-Mart (that place is great!). I had over 10 bags of groceries. I parked my car in the reserved faculty lot because me, being a young girl, was not about to walk a mile with a bunch of bags through a deserted, unlit student parking lot. I grabbed my bags and put them inside my dorm. I walked back out a minute later and there was a parking services guy writing me a ticket. I politely explained my situation to him and the jerk had the nerve to say to me, "Well, you shouldn't go shopping so late now should you?" Called the parking services supervisor the next day and told him the situation. I said to him, "Would you like me to go to the dean and tell him that parking services is making young girls jeopardize their safety?" I was promptly cleared of all charges. Oh, and the rude parking services guy, he was fired that same day.

ZTAngel,

What a great story! :) But you guys haven't lived until you gone to LSU and dealt with their lovely parking people. Juniorgrrl was correct when she mentioned the "rape lot". But she failed to mention how on football Saturdays, students who live in the dorms closest to the studium are forced to moved their cars if they are parked on the street.

Next time any of you get a parking ticket just tell them, "take it out of my tuition" ;) :cool:

Don't get me started on this. I hasn't changed since at least the sixties.

I think it probably cost me more in parking tickets than it did for tuition when I was in college.

My favorite was the two hour meters.

I lived in a trailer park off campus for a while, so the logical thing would be to drive to town in the morning and leave the car in the same spot until all of my classes were over. (Assuming you could find a space to begin with)

BUT NO!

You could only leave your car in any one space for two hours.

What a rip! And those damned tickets cut into my beer money as well.

I have aound $120 of fees from the parking office that are not mine. $80 of which are from a parking pass that I didn't buy. Class Scheduling was a bitch, hopefully this will all be resolved very soon.

though parking problems never will

I was lazy and drove to class this morning, even though I don't have a commuter tag...

I'm probably getting a $10 out of zone ticket as we speak.

Oh well, it was worth it. :) :p

Hmmm i geuss this is one of the major differences with Canadian and American universities. For one, the large majority of us (at my school anyway) don't have our own cars. I live a few blocks south of campus, anything I could possibly need is within walking distance. Worst comes to worst, i take the bus.

Just have a question, what exactly is a commuter school? I've heard you guys mention it a few times now, not sure exactly what you mean by it.

Re: Errr! Stupid University Parking Departments!!
 

The same thing happened to me last semester! I had stayed over with my friend who lived in the dorms..I didn't think that they started ticketing until 8am, so when I moved my car at 7:15, I found that I had gotten a ticket at 7:13..As soon as the parking & transportation office opened at 8am, I went down there and appealed the ticket, and they accepted it :)

i figured a way around paying my parking tickets. this is a little creative and i don't know if it will work for everyone:

first off, i never registered my car with the school, and then every time i got a ticket...which was alot (this only applies to campus parking where jerky campus police write you tickets 24-7) so they would write these dumb tickets, however they could never link me to my car. so by the end of the year i was parking where ever i wanted to and for however long i wanted to and racking up these huge tickets (Elon has 1 hr. parking regs. but classes on tues and thurs are 1 hr. and 40 mins. and you are gaurentted a ticket!) , i probably had a total of $1000 in tickets but they couldn't figure out whose car it was and because they aren't REAL police who can write REAL tickets that can effect your driving, i got away with it.

if you try this at your school though:
1. be sure they aren't real authentic tickets that could hold up in court.
2. do not register or have your car ever registered with the school. most of the time they won't tow it bc they don't know if you are a visitor using the library or something like that. however, also don't have GLO or univ. stickers on your car...they will find you if you do.

I went to school with AZDMaggie(she is also my best friend!) and I agree with her suggestions. I never registered my car either and the school has yet to track me down to pay all of my tickets, from TWO YEARS ago. There were some 2 hour spots you could snag that saved the day, at times. And the student lot parking stickers were on the bumper of the cars, so if you backed into a spot, the parking police were way to lazy to get out of their cars and walk around to the back of your car(especially if another car was there, so you were fine that way too.
We did have a problem with the SUPPOSED loading area by the greek houses. During rush, when I was a party head, I was hauling decorations into the house(mind you, I had my hazards on) and stayed in the house for all of 10 minutes and came out with a ticket on my car and a MEAN cop telling me he was going to tow me. I told the officer that I thought LOADING meant you got to at least take the stuff in the house. I guess he thought otherwise. NOT FAIR!

It is where a majority of students don't live on campus or near it.

Ah okay, thanks dude.

My boyfriend thought he was scot-free by not registering his car with the school- but they tracked down his license tag and sent the ticket to his house, found out his name and put a hold on his record. (That's what happens until you pay it off)

I have no sympathy for people who KNOW that they are parking in a space where they know they can get ticketed and then whine about it recieving a ticket. Even worse is when they yell at the student parking patrolers about giving them a ticket. Um, aren't they doing what they are supposed to?

Alpha Gam,

You're correct if someone knowingly parks in a restricted area. And you're absolutely right about the student parking people.

My problem is that no college I know of makes anywhere near adequate areas/arrangements for student parking.

With tuition rates climbing yearly (I have a son who is a National Merit Semi-Finalist and will go to a highly selective college somewhere), it seem to me not out of line to expect some kind of accomodation -- especially at in city schools.

Additionally, for a city to make rules which "trap" students -- such as the two hour parking zones I mentioned earlier is simply unfair. Why should a student population be penalized when the university is probably a huge source of income for the city already in terms of jobs, taxes and business. Isn't greed a wonderful thing?

Does anyone out there go to a school with adequate parking for student and staff? Just wondering.

It's true - I can't think of any campus that has convienent parking for students. We do, however, have a decent bus system that can take students from the parking lot to close to where they have class.

City schools (such as GaTech) give out more parking passes than they have spaces! It's ridiculous!

ugh, my school is definitly lacking in the parking department. there is hardly enough parking for even the faculty. there are also 4 parking ramps near campus - but by the time you get to them, theyre all full. most of the metered spots have a two hour time limit - so even when i pump if full of quarters for two hours - i get a ticket b/c i don't have time to run there before class and fill it up again. My campus does have a great bus system for people living in the residence halls. and the city has a free shuttle that goes by ost of the sorority houses, so that's good.

Ugh....I had to go to the on-campus bank today and there was absolutely no parking. So, I parked in one of the meter spaces. The meter had 30 minutes on it. I return to my car and I'm standing about 10 feet away. I can see that my meter has two minutes left. Parking services was sitting in their truck all smug right next to my car waiting for my meter to expire!!!! :rolleyes: They were sitting there waiting so that the second it expired, they could give me a ticket. So, I walked to my car, looked at them and rolled my eyes back. I said to the guy in the passenger seat, "Do you really have nothing better to do with your time?" They are such jerks!!!

DA
 

You park where you are not suppose to and you know it, Pay the price and do not complain!

You broke the rules and regulations so you pay up! Do not Bitch about it! Cant do the the time !!!!!! Dont do the Crime no matter how small it seems to you! There are people who paid for the right to park where they do because of the space. It is nothing new to you!

Get off of your dead butt and get to the place so you too can get a parking space while other asswholes get tickets and / or towed off!
Weep not for me because of my stupidity for I have F----ed up!

Hell with .02 cents, this is my total .05 cents!!!

On Somethings, I will be # 2 sandpaper!:mad:

We used to...
 

yeah, we used to have pleanty of parking. Then the stupid university starts another HUGE construction project and decides to fence off/close HALF of the largest student parking lot for construction purposes. So for the first time in university history people have to park on the other side of the freeway and make a run for it. if that doesnt have disaster written all over it. They did build two new lots in the middle of the wilderness, which is nice, but I really dont like having to play wild kingdom on the way to class. (dodging rattlesnakes and possums and the like). They do have a shuttle system, but is worthless now, because it used to be standing room only, which worked, even if it was like riding the Tokyo subway system at 7:30am, but now that has been deemed "unsafe" and the UPD mandates a seat for each rider, and SEATBELTS! How gay is that? So you can park in Guam, and walk to campus, or get there at 6am, or park in fac/staff and risk the ticket.

We used to have 3 categories of parking. General (student), Faculty-Staff, and Reserved (admin, tenured). Now they whacked all that and made like 50 categories, and added a garage that you have to be an engineer to understand. Read below, anyone who can help descipher please do so:

The cost for all garage parking permits will be $360 per fiscal year. Permit categories for faculty and staff have been revised, and fees have been increased for the first time since 1999. The "executive" permit category has been eliminated. The "administrative" category has been changed to "reserved," while the former reserved and faculty/staff permits will be known as faculty/staff A and faculty/staff B, respectively. The A-level permits will cost $150 and will provide "close-in" spaces at the 1604 Campus, Downtown Campus Durango Loop Lot and Institute of Texan Cultures. The B-level permits will cost $75. Students, faculty and staff at the 1604 Campus can purchase a restricted use permit for a new satellite parking facility, Lot 11, located off UTSA Boulevard adjacent to the University Oaks Apartments. Users will take a university shuttle bus to campus buildings.

Garage permits allow 24-hour access to the two lower levels of the garage, with designated garage parking spaces guaranteed 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m.-noon on Saturday. The entry level and ground level of the garage will be available to students, visitors and faculty/staff members on a pay-per-use basis. Hourly parking fees in the garage will be 75 cents, the same as for metered spaces at the 1604 Campus. There will not be parking meters at each space in the garage. Rather, users will deposit their fees into multi-space pay stations located inside the garage, adjacent to the elevators, Buena Vista Building first floor area and in the Frio Street Building Commons area. Pay stations will accept quarters, $1-bills and $5-bills as well as authorized credit cards (MasterCard, Visa and Discover). The user will park, go to the pay station on that level of the garage, enter the parking space number and selects the time desired, then pays using currency or credit card. The station prints out a receipt for the user, indicating the space number, time paid, amount paid and the expiration time. Garage permits will be used for sublevels two and three, which will be gated for access control. Permit holders will be able to enter these sublevels by swiping their UTSA ID card at the entry gate card reader. Students purchasing a garage permit will be allowed to make payments in the fall, spring and summer semesters. These permits also provide for parking in designated, close-in parking areas located at the 1604 Campus. Close-in parking includes the non-numbered, 24-hour reserved parking spaces located in parking lot 6 (curb row in front of the Science Building) and in parking lot 4 (second row directly across from the John Peace Library Building). Beginning this fall, students, faculty and staff will be able to purchase a year a restricted-use parking permit for Lot 11, located adjacent to University Oaks Apartments on UTSA Boulevard. The Lot 11-only parking permit provides for a parking space in this new, underutilized lot <<yeah, cause its in another county>>between 7:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Lot 11 permit holders can park anywhere in general parking Saturday and Sunday. University Police will patrol this lot, and emergency phones are installed. <read, cause its the new RAPE LOT>

Shuttle service will operate between Lot 11 and Lot 9, located near the University Center, Multidisciplinary Studies Building and Humanities and Social Sciences Building, during the period 7:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Permits for Lot 11 must be purchased at the 1604 Campus Parking office. Students, faculty and staff who have already selected a student general or faculty/staff permit prior to the start of fall classes will be able to turn in the more expensive permit and purchase the Lot 11 permit prior to the census date. Lot 11 parking permits provide for parking only in the designated parking lot and are not to be used to park in any other areas at the 1604 Campus, Downtown Campus or Institute of Texan Cultures parking facilities.

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Huh? What the f???

I thank god I dont have classes downtown, and I know of a spot that isnt marked next to the loading zone, behind a dumpster behind the university center that I can park at all the time, risking a ticket once a semester or so. Small price to pay. I'd sooner give out my SSN and credit card numbers on the internet before I'd tell anyone about my secret spot.

As GMU is largely recognized as a commuter school(though that is changing), I might as well take it. A commuter school is one where a sizeable chunk of the student body doesn't live on campus. They commute day to day from their houses, either living with their families or in apartments on campus. Dorms on a commuter school are few in comparission to the total number of students.

Commuter schools also have parking problems, jerks for parking attendants, 10 minute per quarter meters. I recieved a 75 dollar ticket for parking right next to a friends dorm instead of hunting down a space.

Wow. I was talking with some girls today about LSU parking and two people told me that they've gotten tickets on their fee bills because their parents came here and got tickets, and they traced the plates on the car, and connected the names and gave the students a ticket.

Another girl told me about how her sister-in-law was using her dad's car. The sister-in-law got a ticket. My friend wasn't in school here at the time. But when she did start here, they put the ticket under her name.

Its crazy the way they use your license plates to track you...scary...

I graduated from the school GMU Teke goes to and I agree the parking situation is bad at our school. The school profits quite a bit from that and you really wonder where it goes. For instance we have a parking garage where you have to pay 5 bucks a day. Day Parking passes cost about the same. Year Decals are around 125 dollars if I remember correctly. Our parking services people are like the geshtapo. It depends on where the place is on campus. When I attended in the 90s(Fall 93-Spring 97) if you were a minute off on the meters you got a 25 dollar fine. Some spaces on campus landed you as much as a 125 dollar fine if I remember correctly. I had to drop off some stuff in my room one time. Parked my car real quick, came back to find myself a 50 dollar fine. I only had a few fines in my time at school. All of which I paid but it was definitely a nuisance. When I went there about 3000 lived on campus and 22000 commuted. Dont get me wrong. You should pay if you do something you shouldnt. My problem is that the school profits quite a bit from it and I think the school and community should be offering us more.

Kevin

My school had the same kind of gestapo security force as everyone else has mentioned. We had plenty of dorm parking, just not always convenient, near your dorm, or in my opinion safe. Commuters, forget it. You were lucky to park. My apartment was just across the street from the school. Each apartment was assigned a double length parking space. You parked one in front of the other, and the person in the front couldn't leave until the person in the back had left. I would come home from work or the store and discover cars parked in my assigned space. I would then pull in behind them and go to class. When I came out I would find nasty notes and scratches on my car from the person I had "unfairly" blocked in. Sometimes I would come home from class to discover that I was blocked into my spot and couldn't leave to go to work until this person had gotten out of class. The apartment manager was the only one who could call for a tow truck, and he had a rule that the car must have been there for 3 hours before he would tow it (time started when we called it in). That was fine and well for that person, but my boss wasn't pleased about me showing up 2-3 hours late for work!
Parking got to be such an issue that a member of the student newspaper did some research. It was discovered that the money from parking tickets went to the athletic fund. (That also explained why athletes were never ticketed.) There was a HUGE stink over that. I think now the money goes to student entertainment or scholarships. They built some parking lots across the highway, and put in two lights with crosswalks, but they still continue to sell more passes than there are spaces.