MSU’s parking system has Kyle Lappin loving 8 a.m. classes because that’s the only time he can find a place to park without encountering problems.
“Anyone who has nearly missed an exam because the gates wouldn’t work or the lot was full knows why the parking setup needs a lot of work,” the engineering mechanics senior said.
While white paper under windshield wipers often angers campus drivers, MSU Department of Police and Public Safety Deputy Chief Mike Rice said parking citations have been decreasing for the last three years because more parking lots are protected by gates.
From July 1999 to July 2000, 117,637 parking tickets were issued compared to 103,296 issued from July 2001 to this July - a difference of more than 14,000 tickets.
But ticket revenues have increased despite the reduction in issued tickets.
Parking citations can cost drivers as little as $10 for meter violations or as much as $40 for failing to register a vehicle. Ticket prices rose $5 across the board in July 2001.
“But we are also writing fewer tickets than we used to so that has the effect of self-canceling,” Rice said.
The surplus from parking-ticket revenue pays for safety-improvement projects, including the addition of street lights, improving roads and maintaining the green-light safety-phone system, Rice said.
More student and faculty parking has been added to campus over the years, Rice said. But “you can’t come park here like you do at 7-Eleven,” he said. “You wouldn’t want that type of atmosphere.”
Rice said more than $22 million was put toward the new Shaw Lane parking ramp, and $4.1 million was used to expand Lot 89, the commuter lot, two years ago. Those developments were part of an evolving 2020 Vision plan to utilize the green space at the center of campus for educational purposes and not parking lots, Rice said.
The 2020 Vision parking plan is to establish perimeter parking around campus and rely on quick mass transit rather than front-door parking, Rice said.
“We’ve taken some of the most valuable land at the center of campus, and it’s used for parking lots,” Rice said.
MSU Trustee Don Nugent said he would like to see south campus look similar to north campus 50 years from now.
“It doesn’t have to be asphalt over the land,” said Nugent, who explained that parking structures can be made to blend into campus to make it look beautiful in a park-like setting.
“Its really a pain. I never know when and where I can park and what allotment time I have before big bad (Department of Police and Public Safety) comes around,” said telecommunication junior Tom David, charging parking enforcement is unfair.
But Rice said MSU’s parking system is operated fairly, and ticket rates also help to cover operations costs, adding car maintenance, insurance, gas and parking fees are expensive. It costs $1.25 million each year to maintain the parking system.
But agricultural communications sophomore Megan Townsend said the campus parking system inhibits people from coming to visit her.
“When my sister comes up to visit me she gets a ticket every time because there is no where to park,” Townsend said.
Parking on campus is often frustrating, and at the same time, MSU parking police is doing a good job at monitoring illegal parking, Townsend said.
“What are you going to do?” Townsend said. “It’s like a double-edged sword.”
Alison Barker can be reached at barkera6@msu.edu.
