Students near dorms battle with parking fees

Parking tickets are like the common cold. They affect everyone at some point.

For many IU students, the initial bout with this particular strain begins soon after they decide to pull onto campus for the first time.

Along with the freedom a car offers, some students encounter the financial responsibility that comes with parking ticket fines.

On average, 40,000 tickets are given out every school year, said Doug Porter, IU Parking Operations parking manager. Another 10,000 are given out during the summer.

Sophomore Paul Pescovitz said he received seven of those tickets last school year. He owned an E pass that allowed him to park in the stadium lot and on the Jordan Avenue extension, though he said this pass did not help him avoid infractions that led to $250 in fees.

The IU Parking Operations website lists 31 possible infractions. They range from expired meters, parking in the incorrect zone and displaying fraudulent or altered permits to parking in a loading zone, which Pescovitz said he found most frustrating.
   
Pescovitz said he was ticketed twice for leaving his car unattended on Campbell Street outside Wright Quad for no more than 15 minutes while he unloaded bags from a weekend at home.

“It’s impractical to be expected to walk from the stadium with all of my bags back to the dorms when it could take five minutes if I was parked right outside,” Pescovitz said.

As a way to resolve this problem, Pescovitz said he would suggest transforming a few parking spaces in the lots near dorms into 15-minute loading zones. Some dorms, such as Eigenmann, already have such zones.

Because these do not exist, Porter said his best advice to students and faculty is to become experts on their parking pass zones and the hours they apply.

“It may take a while to know exactly when and where a D-1 permit can park, but it’s a very important step to take,” Porter said.
 
Porter said it is also important for drivers to display their permits in the proper place inside their car.
 
The peak times for parking tickets, Porter said, are when the most students are on campus: mid-week and mid-day.

Parking officers such as Mary Smith work Monday through Friday, patrolling a specific area of campus they are assigned. They walk the parking lots and streets in rain, snow and 100-degree temperatures, Porter said.

Smith said she works the center campus area, which includes mostly A permit areas. She said she gives out at least 20 tickets every day.

However, Smith said her colleagues assigned to work near the dorm parking lots sometimes give out twice that many.

“They sometimes give out 40 to 70 tickets,” Smith said.   

Marcy Baugh is an attendant who works at the booth on Seventh Street by the Indiana Memorial Union parking lot. When she can, she patrols the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation parking lot to the right and the IMU circle drive to the left of her booth.

She said she gets complaints from people who received tickets at least a few times a week.

“Oh, they complain at me, yell at me. Nobody likes to be told no,” Baugh said. “But I’m just doing what the University policy told me. I just send them along to the parking office.”