Students now have 'access' to parking lots

Parking on campus just got a little easier for students.\nWhile more spaces have not been added in either of the Indiana Memorial Union's parking lots, and patrons still have to pay $1.65 per half hour (or $0.85 if the patron has a receipt from the IMU), students are now able to pay for parking with their Campus Access cards. \nThe change began at the beginning of this semester after Union Lots 1 and 2, across from Ernie Pyle Hall and adjacent to the circle, underwent an upgrade last spring that ran cables out to the cashier booths, said Rooms Division Manager Brandi Host.\n"(The booth in the lot across from Ernie Pyle Hall) didn't even have telephone cables," Host said. "To be able to run proper cabling out there has allowed us to have these capabilities. Now students' families can help them pay for parking."\nSophomore Robyn Sorley has worked as a cashier in the booth adjacent to the IMU circle drive since last summer. She said adding the possibility of paying with Campus Access Cards has made her job substantially easier.\n"It makes things faster, it's not hard and a lot of students really prefer to pay that way," she said.\nBy 5:30 p.m Tuesday, Sorley had been at work for two and a half hours and had about seven people pay with their Campus Access Cards -- make that eight as a boy in a black BMW hands her his card, then speeds through the gate.\nAnother student, junior Chris Djonlich, isn't as lucky in getting out so quickly. He sat in his Toyota Corolla and wrote a check to pay for his parking. \n"Of course I'd be interested in paying with Campus Access," Djonlich said. "I'm wasting time sitting here writing a check."\nBefore the addition of Campus Access cards, parking could be paid by cash, check or an IOU added to a student's bursar bill with an additional $10 fee to the parking cost. Host said the next likely progression in the process would be the ability to pay by credit card, but there isn't a set date as to when that might occur.\n"That would be wonderful, to be able to pay with a credit card," said Sorley, "We get so many people who ask for that."\nFor now, students will have to be appeased with the new ability to pay with Campus Access.\n"I didn't know you could pay with Campus Access," sophomore Christie Snelling said as she searched for cash in her car. "Sure, I'd do it. It would be a lot easier than digging out cash."\nOthers aren't so sure anything has really changed.\n"Campus Access is basically the same as cash right?" sophomore Mike Ferrara said as he waited for his change at Sorley's booth. "If I'm still paying with cash, I might as well pay with cash"