Parking

are you apart of comm 322? 4pm dialogue group?

Yes.

another 322 4pm person here.

I just want to know where all the ticket money is exactly going...

Sorry I was a little confused. Anyways, I agree with you about parking. I typically only come to campus twice a week, so I don't feel I should spend so much money for parking. I probably spend just as much though paying for parking daily. I love it when I find a spot on the side of the road, down by the vu, that I don't have to pay for its awesome.

Honestly, why aren't we the students informed about where there money is going... if its going to things such as scholarships or something like that its undertanding but we should still have the right to be informed.

Does anyone know if the money from tickets goes to the school or city??? I'm not sure who is actually monitoring the streets....

They really aren't open to talking about parking. I tried to write a story about the parking situation during the Summer for the Western Front and was told that only two people were authorized to talk about and I couldn't get in touch with either of them, so I never ended up writing the story.

Looks like we need a whistle blower to find out what is going on.

 Another 4pm 322 student is here!  Anyways, as I was saying yesterday in class, I don't even drive, but I can very much see the ffrustration in the parking issue at WWU.  I strongly agree with the fact that, we as students, have the right to see where our dollars are going.  Honestly, I haven't tried to contact Western's University financial department.  Has anyone else?  And have they actually said they can't tell you?

 Because who knows!  That money could be going to a very good cause.  We just have no way of knowing.

I just walk to school and have a parking lot at my apartment complex but I have received two tickets in the 4 years that I've been here. I hope that the $30 went towards something useful.

well, i myself don't drive either but i dont agree with the tremendouse money being made from parking and such...but i also admit to not taking the innitiative to ask or try to find out where all the money is going....So i guess as students it's partially our fault we don't know...?

There have been a few articles in the past few years written specifically on parking tickets given on campus.  The earliest one I remember which was probably in my freshman year (2005-2006) I remember (memory not quoting specifically) that it talked about how the school pretty much relied on the money made from the tickets to fund different programs on campus as well as paying various staff including the officers writing up the tickets.  I did some research and this is th only article I found (http://westernfrontonline.net/200804299940/news/parking-fines-at-western...).  The thing that they mention as far as where the money goes is " "According to the Parking and Transportation Services Web site, the department made $172,892 in 2007.  The money they make each year, after their expenses are deducted from their revenues, is used within the department to pay for parking lot maintenance, parking signs, employee wages, equipment replacement, other operating expenses incurred by the campus parking system and a portion of it also goes into a monetary reserve to fund projects such as the Lincoln Park and Ride.  “Basically, the money goes back into the system,” Gassman said.  “We receive no state funds.” "

Awsome, so they have a well funded ticket machine oiled up to screw over students. Sorry still a bit bitter about my tickets

I've heard a lot of that before, but the parking lots are in pretty poor condition for them to be spending so much money on them. So either the employee wages are too high, or they're really inefficient with how they're using the money (which definitely wouldn't be a surprise, I've never seen or heard of any school using money effectively).

wow...its good to know  where parking money goes.... So since were talking about this..does anyone have any comments as to why Birnam Wood residents are also required to buy a parking pass?

That article is very interesting...thank you for that.  It's hard to say how students should handle the parking issue, in order to not recieve multiple and unnecessary parking tickets.  Do you guys have any brilliant ideas?  I'm trying to think...perhaps we can a) urge students to utilize the park-n-ride, b) urge students to utilized the free bus pass and ride the bus, c) convince the western parking enforcement to lower parking ticket prices, or d) boycott the C-lot!  I feel as though students have already been informed of the first two, so there must be another way. 

One of the things I always hear as far as administrators or faculty, for those who don't want to buy the parking passes is to use the bus.  Now grant it that the bus is the next best option and it's an already mandatory fee that you have to pay as a student (this could be another topic), the thing is that the parking in places like the park-n-ride and even on the streets isn't that great as it is.  One, people have to become scavangers on the open parking spots in the neighborhoods around WWU or you have to go to the aweful uneven gravel parking lot at the park-n-ride that's had many cars broken into or as I remember my freshman year... even some of the hoods of the cars being removed for whatever reason people did that.  So if the article is right and they would not want parkers to have such a big issue then they should use th money to build that different level parking lot over the gravel lots, or at least fix the parking that's already there with some type of security so that we don't feel resentfull of th fees and we can feel comfortabl leaving our cars in their hands.

I think as students, the best solution would be to C) convince western parking enforcement to lower parking ticket prices. Or if they are unwilling to do that, maybe they could at least make some improvements like pavement over the c-lot? What are steps students can make towards accomplishing one of the two?

Whether they are using the money they have now effectively or not any increase in security or improvement of the parking lots would cost more money and they would undoubtedly raise the price in an unbalanced way. Any raise in their costs is likely to be an even greater raise in our costs.

Without their balance sheet, there is no way to know for sure how they are allocating the money. I would think that something that is state- run should have to provide that to the public.

I think that one of the biggest attributes to this is the fact that every year we have more and more students being admitted into Western.  Grant it that it's not an issue that students come into Higher Education but the school has shown different ways that they accomodate the increase numbers.  They're making more brick walk ways, making double rooms into triple rooms, leasing not just one but two apartment complexs, offering 4 star temporary housing for those who still don't have a place to live and so on.  So it only seems necessary that with this that they should at the very least fix the parking that's already in existance.  Every year we see the dump trucks come into the C-lots, and even in the park-n-ride, dump more gravel to even out the ground.  This is more like a bandaid solution then an actual solution to make the parking better.  So I would go with boycotting to have them fix the spaces, the money that students put in each year for parking should be a significant amount to go towards that, and if not there is always the city that can assist in this issue as well because the parking on the streets is being completely taken over.

i agree if they say that our money is being used to maintain the parking lot's why havent they really been maintained.... and i also think that more money would be asked from the students to do maintainance such as security.

I agree, It seems like the school continues to find temporary fixes rather than solutions

 Would you guys have a different perspective on parking lot issues if you knew that the money was going to scholarships/guest speakers on campus/free events/etc?  I would.  The fact is that we're all upset because we only see the physical ways in which our dollars are being spent.  I wouldn't be AS pissed if I knew that it was helping prospective students get to college or providing me with cool opportunities to make my tuition bills feel worth while.  (Sorry, not to sound negative...I do truly enjoy earning my degree and I love Western.) But come on!   

i found the notes of a meeting held back in 2005, I'm sure there's a more recent one but figure this can help for the mean time.  (http://www.acadweb.wwu.edu/senate/Senate/Other%20Univ%20REPORTS/TransPla...)  There is a section that I just think is rediculous "At an anticipated average cost of $22,500 per space and assuming parking for 100 vehicles per acre, the construction of a multi-level parking structure for 400 vehicles on an acre of land would cost about $9 million and result in an additional capacity of 300 vehicles (100 vehicles could park on the acre without the cost of a building).".  $9 million dollars for a parking garage seems insane, but if that's the going rate at that time, then who knows how much it would cost now.

i honestly would have a different perspective.... this situation could go for all the fees on our tuiton bill that we don't all know about....for example the rec. fee most students don't use it so why should they pay for it?

But if i knew that this money went to things such as scholarships and such i would feel different about it.

More or less; it doesn't really make sense for the money from parking to be mainly funding other things. Plus I don't really care much about "free events". They aren't really free, every student is paying for them so the students who are actually interested in them don't have to pay as much.

It's another situation of students not knowing where the money is going, especially since the money is somewhat advertised as being for parking.

I guess I would agree with you Danica, and in a way I have that feeling for the Bookstore.  The prices that are available leave us with empty pockets but that money goes for the maintanence of the store and the rest goes to the AS, which funds things like scholarships, speakers, concerts, etc.  In this case it's not so much if we knew or not that those tickets would fund that as well, it's that it's stated in that article that it goes towards what we really havent seen. (I love Western too ;D)

That's a very good point you bring up.  There are SO many fees that students wouldn't even realize they were paying, hadn't they went online and looked at their account.  I agree with the rec center fee...I use the rec center a lot, but I have a lot of friends who don't, so I think they should pay less, and perhaps I should even pay a little more (or the same I am now).  But for things that students don't ever use, it makes no sense to charge them for it.  

A lot of people talk about the student fees we pay at Western, and I totally understand. If you don't use the Rec Center, or the Child Development Center, why should you have to pay for it?

While I definetly understand, I have wonder, if we didnt have things like the rec center, our renewable energy fee, student technology fee, what would our campus be like? We often take services for granted,and not really notice them if they disappear. What would happen if everyone who didnt go to the technology center didnt pay the STF? What would happen if they didnt pay for the Rec Center? We wouldnt have it. In my opinion, all that should be provided by the administration and the state, however in reality-that can't happen. Resources, especially given this economic crisis, are going to become even more scarce. While I know I certaintly don't go to the rec center every day, I'm willing to pitch in because it makes the quality of our campus life better.

Also, Western is the most efficient school in the state when it comes to making the most out of student and state dollars. Central has it's students paying $5,724 in fees anually (collectively, not per student), Eastern: $7, 317, WSU: $7,317 anually, UW: $6,801. Of all the major Universities, Western charges at least $200 less per year in mandatory fees, coming up to $5,535 per year. (each student pays about $249 per year).

That being said, for the quality of campus life and the services we're getting, we're actually the least expensive university in the state when it comes to mandatory fees.