In yet another example of the Department of Transportation Services’ aversion to the concept of reasonable treatment of student drivers, DOTS announced – mumbled, actually – that drivers parking in garages and using meters across the campus will need to shell out more cash every time they put their car in park.
DOTS – a fittingly Orwellian name – is actually making it harder to park on the campus at a time when more and more students are moving off the campus due to a lack of on-campus housing.
Although the Student Fee Review Board approved the increases in February, little publicity about the changes – simply signs in front of garages, and nothing at all for the meters – has occurred since then. If students don’t protest, they agree, right? And further reducing the possible student complaints over the fees, the change comes in the middle of July, when far fewer students are around the campus to notice the changes than during the school year. DOTS has yet to even post a notice of the increase on its website.
David Allen, the director of DOTS, probably wonders why his department frequently catches flack from all segments of the campus population. Not telling people about new fees and cost increases tends to upset them. The lack of publicity is especially egregious since students who don’t notice the new fees involved with parking at metered spots could end up with tickets for not realizing a quarter is worth 15 minutes instead of 20.
Though these increases were not large in and of themselves, the hikes are the icing on the permit-and-ticket cake students all too often are forced to shovel down in order to park their cars on the campus.
To many students, it may seem the mission of DOTS is not to manage the campus transportation system and that it instead exists solely to make money off the people it purports to serve. In the future, students upset with DOTS fee-mongering should see the department for what it is – not an extension of the university in its dealings with students, but a revenue-hungry outfit focused solely on the bottom line.
