Weekend parking enforcement postponed indefinitely

On-campus weekend parking enforcement has been postponed indefinitely, according to the University Police Department (UPD) Chief of Police George Hughes.

“Obviously, when we started rolling out this change, we had a lot of feedback from the campus with a lot of questions and concerns,” Hughes said. “We wanted to make sure that we got the proper input from all of the campus community members to make sure before we make any change that we have them properly notified and educated.”

There are three main reasons Parking Services wanted to enforce weekend parking for: management of all vehicles that come to campus, a source of revenue and equity of parking for the campus community.

“The first was management of all the vehicles that come to campus on the weekends, because we have seen a dramatic increase in the past three or four years of people coming to campus on the weekend; it is difficult for us to manage all on campus,” Hughes said. “The second component was the revenue. The third is just to make sure that we are being equitable to everyone on campus. Let’s say you purchase a permit that is good for the quarter or the year — you’re supplementing free parking for those who want to come on the weekend.”

Seven-day parking enforcement would provide an increase in revenue for Parking Services, a self-sustaining entity that is funded by parking permits and citations. However, this would only generate approximately $30,000-50,000 per year.

Based off of feedback from the campus community, the Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) Board of Directors opposed the implementation of weekend parking fees.

The resolution was authored by business administration sophomore Daniela Czerny, materials engineering junior Sarah Zerga and political science sophomore Ryan Durante. They have been working on this resolution for the past six weeks, gathering information from students, administration and UPD.

At the Board of Directors meeting on March 2, the resolution passed unanimously, Board of Directors Chair and mechanical engineering senior Vittorio Monteverdi said.

The university’s Administration and Finance department has hired parking consultants to meet with the board spring quarter to discuss other ways to fix the on-campus parking problem.

“They’ve hired a parking consultant to come and speak to the campus, speak to faculty, speak to the students and really get feedback on how can we fix this problem more than just making students pay to come on the weekends,” Monteverdi said. “We wanted to get the student voice out there so that when the consultants come, we can assert that students really don’t want to pay for parking on Sunday and Saturday.”

Since the resolution passed, Parking Services will approach changes to parking in a different way.

“Instead of looking at one piece of the parking puzzle, there (are) a lot of changes occurring on this campus,” Hughes said. “So we want to study the entire parking services program, and then look at what changes overall should be made to better provide parking services on campus.”