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My uni charged a parking fee to every student.
You still couldn’t park unless you also bought a parking pass.
I WORKED at a university and had to pay for parking!
My employer has an attached garage that is free to us. It’s not big enough for everyone, so you better get in before 9:30 if you want a spot. Parking nearby is $18.
My Uni secretly wouldn’t give tickets during finals week because they didn’t want to drive students over the edge.
Mine withheld transcripts and diplomas if their were open tickets and absolutely would have given tickets out during finals.
My university was kind enough to offer a free lot on the far side of campus. They even had the bus go there.
They would also regularly send parking enforcement to find cars “hiding” in the lot off main campus that had delinquent fines. They would then boot the students car removing their access to transportation.
Pretty cruel since this was deep in the south and there was no functioning transit off-campus
Mine had issues with tires getting slashed, and items stolen in lots that were patrolled by campus police, who couldn’t catch the criminal. When the city police got involved, they found out it was the campus police.
My first one, which was downtown, did the exact same thing, but didn’t even have enough parking for the people with passes, so everyone parked juuuuuuuuuust off campus and didn’t pay. All the houses within a 3 block radius were owned by either faculty or people who rented them to students, so they didn’t care at all. The only students who really used the lots were either living on campus and had to pay to store the vehicle anyway, or disabled people who didn’t have to pay.
The second one I transferred to, however, was amazing. Every building could be accessed via tunnels, and was set up like a wheel with spokes so each building connected to the center as well as its neighboring buildings, iirc. You could navigate the entire campus without going outside (Midwest winters). Every building also had a huge parking lot nearby, which was free because the campus was not close to anything but residential housing; campus was completely surrounded by conservation study acreage, as ecological sciences were very important there. Busses came mostly as scheduled. It was a dream of a place to go to school, honestly.
I popped into a dorm for 5 minutes to drop off a book to a friend, and paid the meter out front even though I was just gonna be there for 5 minutes.
Came out to find a ticket on my motorcycle for parking it in a car spot. There was no motorcycle parking available.
At UMD, you have to buy a parking pass, but during basketball and football games you can’t use them and you can’t park there, because they’re selling our spaces for more money to sports attendees. Insane.
Sports have been ruining academics since ancient Greece at least.
That’s the same at our university as well.
Ofcourse I work from home like 99% of the time, so this doesn’t bother me, but the principle behind paying for parking if i have to go to work, is employer double dipping your pay
Counterpoint: Fuck cars.
agree but unfortunately for a lot of students in the USA the only form of transit to their university is by car
It’s more an infrastructure problem. I’m so glad to have had affordable tuition, bikeable infrastructure and good public transit
Very important point (VIP)
The worst part is paying for the permit and still having to spend 20 minutes circling the lot like a vulture because there are zero spots left. You’re basically paying for a license to hunt for parking.
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Oh fuck did we go back in time? We got Nigerian-Prince-level scams on Lemmy now!
Universities are ideal places for investing in public transit, fuck cars
You’re assuming that’s a realistic option. I’d also prefer it, but in the meantime we have to deal with reality.
Note: I live near Boston, and we have decent train service to many urban universities. It’s a great model that we should expand on, but not every school is located in a major city with transit
This is such a bad excuse for subsidizing rich kids who got free cars from their parents. I used to live in a rural town in the US and the local college had usable bike paths AND decent access to bus routes
Ironically it wasn’t until I moved to a city five times the size that I was having 1+ hour bus trips to get across town and bus times were sometimes comparable to walking due to routes being too long.
Accessibility is 100% a choice by the local government and university admins.
Edit, just to be crystal clear about feasibility:
There are situations where enough people have cars (or helicopters if theyre in an extremely wealthy area) that it might make sense to provide amenities for some travelers private accomodations but in most cases busses are often the best solution for universities and colleges because they both have massive seasonal traffic fluctuations (meaning parking investmests go unused 25% of the year and therefore parking fees need to be 33% higher to pay for annual maintenance) and because students are more likely to have issues with maintaining or replacing a car if they even have one.
I went to a university in a rural area, they invested in local bus services to make it free for students. It was cheaper than building more parking anyways
Dutch universities: “bike parking is free. There’s a bus stop in front of every building and busses are free for students. Why would we waste everyone’s money just so you can park for free?”
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I recommend “the high cost of free parking” by Donald Shoup.
I helped my buddy with a project during our freshman year and as my payment, he sent me a photo of his parking pass and its dimensions.
Better believe I used that fake pass alllllll year. Never got caught 'neither.
I did have a buddy get caught, though, and it was quite the fine.
I am once again recommending everyone read Donald Shoup’s The High Cost of Free Parking.
I just read about a campus building a multilevel parking lot for students who live in their cars. They could build a residence hall, but why normalize structural living, when there is no way they could afford it with their student loans. Just preparing them for reality.
Of course, the average new car price is over $50K, so cars aren’t going to be a viable living option for many, either. Perhaps they should set up a campground area on campus, for students who can only afford a tent?
The way a lot of students solve this in Australia, at least in Melbourne where I’m from, is by taking the train (or a tram) to university. The university I went to was adjacent to a train station.
Students from low-income families and that are independent get money from the government which can be used for anything, including public transport passes. Living on campus isn’t really a thing in Australia, so a lot of students continue to live with their parents while at uni to save money, or live at an apartment nearby.
I checked the journey to the university near me. It’s currently 2pm on a Thursday, using live travel data
- car: 14 mins
- bike: 48 mins (route illegal, as you’d have to bike on the shoulder of a 4 lane freeway)
- public transport: 1h40m, 3 changes, each with a 7 min walk between them
- on foot: 2h46 mins
Public transport to my last school was something like 4 hours, 3 changes, with a 25 minute walk between one of them. I couldn’t have left early enough to made my first class. It was a 30 minute drive. Parking was free though.
I teach at a local university and it provides some free parking in addition to paid parking. Of course, the paid spaces are closer to the buildings, but at least there’s some free spaces, too.
I’m a third-party non-employee lecturer at my local university. I teach scuba, underwater photography, and scientific diving. The courses are taught off-campus at a dive shop using the shop’s its classrooms, pool, and equipment. The liability insurance is paid by me.
There’s a lake on campus we dive at, and the university charges students to enter it.
The students have to pay $3000+ in tuition for some of my classes.
…and the university doesn’t give me or the shop a dime. The students have to pay a 200 dollar lab fee, and that’s split between me and the shop for the semester. The only thing the university provides is the course numbers and taking the money, and they get 30 times as much money as I do.
I have multiple individual cameras I use to teach the class that cost more than I make in 5 years of teaching the photography class.
And they want to charge me $800/year for parking for the rare occasions when I need to go on campus.
Fuck that - I just let them ticket me. The parking services department isn’t a law enforcement agency. The biggest threat they really have is withholding grades for students who owe parking tickets.
Its almost like university’s see you as a pay check!
We don’t have parking on campus, really awesome when my injury plays up. >:( To be fair there’s no room lol.
What did you hurt? Iv been dealing with a nagging shoulder issue
My back and hips used to be so bad from working now they are much better
I tore the shit out of soft tissue in my foot, they are still trying to figure it out years later. Basically extreme turf toe.
I just parked on the streets by campus and ate the parking tickets. I think I only got four tickets over the five years of college, and each one was $28 I think.
