Self-Sighting: Campus Parking Office

[jedimaster91]

The community college I went to has horrible parking. If you don't get into the lot by 8am, you don't park. And that includes the secondary lot behind Taco Bell.

[dalesys]

The community college I went to has horrible parking. If you don't get into the lot by 8am, you don't park. And that includes the secondary lot behind Taco Bell.

That separates the students into the dedicated and the defecated... SOL

[shankyknitter]

The college up the hill from me has started joking about how hard it is to find a spot to park. They now give out passes for specific lots and that's the only lot you can park in. These go to residents first, commuters second. But you don't need a parking pass to park on the street. However the streets are always packed too. More than once have I seen the bumper sticker:

If you see my professor tell him I'm looking for a parking spot- RPI

[jedimaster91]

That separates the students into the dedicated and the defecated... SOL

True, but no one should have to show up by 8am for a 2pm class. I was fortunate in that I used to work in the area so I would park at school, go to work and then go to class.

The parking situation is the reason I chose early classes when I could. The best schedule I ever had was my second semester. I had Anatomy & Physiology at 7:45am on Tue/Thur. My lab was on Tuesdays, so by 9am on Thursday I was done for the day.

[protege]

If you see my professor tell him I'm looking for a parking spot- RPI

Ah, RPI. I've only been up that way once, back in 2001. Didn't see much of the campus...but several hours were spent at the model railroad club

When I was in school, there was never enough parking. Mainly, because the school had too many damn projects going on at the same time. Construction vehicles were everywhere, it seemed. Not helping things, were the lazy resident students (I lived 3 miles outside of town), that would drive from building to building. Seriously? The campus is less than 1.5 miles square, pancake-flat (except for the steep ass hill by the library) and you're driving?

[PepperElf]

in my mind, paid college parking is stupid 100%
one of the things i like about the community college i go to. the only "paid" parking is for the dorms, cos you're in a special dorm-only lot.

after that it's mostly open parking. there's a couple of lots for staff, but... it's pretty rare to not find a spot. and it's free. only requirement is a parking pass which they never make you renew.

[Andara Bledin]

in my mind, paid college parking is stupid 100%

Let's see... You have a commodity (parking spaces) that are limited and often have a much greater demand than can be provided for.

Seems to me that the stupid thing would be to not monetize on a limited resource under your control. *shrug*

^-.-^

[Kogarashi]

The university I went to seemed to like to flip-flop on this. My last year single, they had bus passes for a fee but handed out the student parking passes like candy. The problem with the parking passes was that they handed out about twice as many passes as they had spaces in the corresponding lots, and people with other passes (for different lots) would take up the student parking and not get fined for it, so it was always a huge battle to find a place to park.

Then the next year, they switched it up so that bus passes were free with student ID, but student parking passes cost an arm and a leg. My in-laws paid for a pass for our jeep since my SIL usually used it, and Hubby and I took the bus to school since we lived right next to a convenient stop.

The year after that, I guess they decided the bus passes were more lucrative (or the bus system complained of losing money), because it switched back. Bus passes became an arm and a leg and student parking passes were free again, and once again there were not enough parking spaces. Luckily Hubby and I mostly lived within parking distance by this point, and the student pass was convenient since we needed it for parking in our apartment lot.

The worst parking situation I've ever encountered, though, was actually at my high school. There were two lots, one for teachers and one for students. Except that the teacher lot was away from everything, and the student lot closest to half the classrooms. Teachers could park in either lot, so half the teachers parked in the student lot. Students could only park in the student lot, though, and more passes were sold than there were spaces, leading to students parking on the grass, cheating and parking in the teacher lot, or getting yelled at for parking in the bus spaces in between the two lots. Nothing was ever done in my recollection to relieve the imbalance, either.

[Tanasi]

I live within 3 miles of the local university that my daughters graduated from. Their first year they lived at home. At the time the bus didn't come into our area so they shared a car and drove together. They had to be on campus before 8am to get a way-far-away commuter spot. They weren't happy because this cost them sleep and the parking/hunting pass was a couple hundred bucks. Some days it was almost quicker to walk from home rather than waste time looking for a parking spot. To make things worse in addition to the campus police, the local city also had pay parking enforced by city PD, and there are several private parking companies that have cars towed by wrecker buzzards. Some lots were clearly marked others weren't. Those that weren't are usually private and you have to pay $1 an hour to park in advance, if your time expires you had 5 minutes to payup or the buzzards pounce. After I or the wife had driven them to get their car out of jail I bought them 2 little <50cc scooters. They can park them with the bicycles right at their class building. The next year they got a near campus apartment and walked.
Way back in the olden days (before we had light), when I was at university I was one of 16 people that had a reserved parking space. It was just for me, no students, facuility, or staff could legally park there. With afternoon or night classes I did my running around in the mornings. About 70% of the time someone was in my spot when I returned. If I could park fairly close by I didn't say anything if it was a student, if it was facuility I'd call campus police and get them ticketed and especially so if it was the sociallogy or psyicollogy profs (I extrememly disliked those folks.) With my sticker I could park anywhere staff, student it didn't matter I parked where I liked. Nowdays that privilege is gone.

[Eisa]

My school sucks with parking, too! We don't have a lot of parking. We did have a free giant parking lot up at the sports arena, but of course, you pretty much had to take the bus [which is free] back down to get to any of your classes, as walking would suck.

But this year, they jacked up parking pass prices HUGELY. Like...I think it's around $300 a semester now, and it was like less than $100 last year. People are PISSED. They also had it where you had to pay to park at the sports arena no matter when you were parking there, but there was such an uproar, they had to modify that...I mean, it was such that even if you were there for a sports game or for a play or something at 8 p.m., you had to pay to park there. Everyone. Which is ridiculous.

[Sapphire Silk]

The instructor spaces at my CC are closest to the building. Any faculty or staff member can park there, and faculty/staff can also park in student spaces. I always try to get a faculty space first not simply because it is closer, but because it leaves more spaces for students.

Student parking on our campus is really cheap. I think it's $5 for a permit, and you can park in any student parking spot. Tickets are really cheap too, $5 for illegal parking so a lot of students will just rack up the fines rather than fight to find a legal spot. A lot of them get surprised when they don't pay their fines, then come to registration and are told they can't register.

The local tow companies have been busy lately. I saw 2 tow trucks tow cars from the same area in less than an hour the other day. I see someone get towed everyday.

That's not cheap, and you either pay up on the tow fee to get your car back, or rack up storage charges before your car gets sold at auction.