A spate of proposals by Transportation Services and the Campus Parking Advisory Committee are aimed at making parking on the campus much more expensive for the average driver in the near future. The proposed parking policy changes include an increase in fines for minor parking violations, an increase in the cost of parking permits — up to 10 percent for certain people — and a raise in the cost of parking at a meter up to $1 an hour.
When I read about the fee hike shenanigans going on right now, it makes me glad this is the last semester I have to deal with our wonderful parking overlords. It’s a rough decision when my two options are buying a parking permit for the academic year or eating something other than Ramen for a semester.
The reasons for these increases are threefold: to supplement an expected $800,000 deficit in Transportation Services’ budget, to increase Shuttle-UM full-time driver salaries and to serve as a preventative measure against future parking violators. The first is to be expected in light of recent systematic budget crises, the second is a noble goal (I’m not sure $12 an hour is still enough to pay those brave bus drivers), but the third one? Yeah, right.
In any case, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from four years of dealing with the people and policies at Transportation Services, it’s that complaining about its policies is about as worthwhile as trying to get director David Allen to pay his parking tickets (Zing!). Just in case Allen overestimated his budget deficit slightly, I’ll offer a few modest proposals for small-picture problems that go unnoticed:
– Better security in parking lots: The parking lots have not been safe places to walk recently, be it 2 a.m. Sunday or 2 p.m. Tuesday. Working in the box office at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, I routinely get phone calls from patrons asking about parking security. I’ve had a patron tell me she had tickets for a performance, drove to the campus and immediately went home after she saw she’d have to park in Lot 1 instead of Stadium Garage. Constant crime alert e-mails have gotten me to the point where I hesitate to walk by myself or allow someone else to walk to his or her car alone after a night shift.
– Golf cart fleet providing 24-hour car-to-class service: Asking too much? OK, next idea.
– More parking spaces for disabled people: Tawes Theatre, a 1,300-seat performance space, has exactly two spaces for handicapped people in its main parking lot. In Lot 1b next to CSPAC, a building capable of seating up to 2,000 people, there are three. There are also three in Lot 1b next to the tennis courts. I can’t fathom how that’s an acceptable number to provide real accessibility to facilities.
– Directional arrows in Lot 1C: Comedian Lewis Black has it wrong when he claims the end of the universe is a street in Houston where a Starbucks sits across the street from another Starbucks. The real end of the world is in the Lot 1C overflow lot behind Ludwig Field. A third of the way into the lot the traffic-flow arrows from three different directions converge on the same spot, creating an inescapable vortex of perpetual traffic jams.
Transportation Services has bigger fish to fry than repainting lines in a parking lot or providing me with a golf cart to ensure I never walk to class again. But if all it focuses on is fulfilling the Facilities Master Plan and keeping money flowing into its coffers, Transportation Services will end up not needing to worry about permit costs because no one will want to purchase one. I don’t have much faith in a bureaucratic organization that demands I pay $166 a year to park but yet has a director who refuses to pay $15 parking fines. Maybe if we’re lucky that $800,000 estimate was a bit high, and Transportation Services will have enough room in its budget to kick some of it back to students and employees who cut the checks. If not, I know a kid who’d love to repaint those arrows in Lot 1C for his Eagle Scout project.
Abram Fox is a senior art history and archaeology and history major. He can be reached at abram@umd.edu.
