For Campus Parking, Farther May Be Faster

By Broadside Staff Writer Sonya Hudson

Students have stated their dissatisfaction with George Mason University’s parking on the connect2mason Web site and on the student government forum Web site during the start of the Fall 2008 semester. Josh Cantor, the director of Parking and Transportation, defends the parking at Mason from student accusations.

Standard Parking is in its fourth year of a five-year contract with Mason. Standard Parking is the company that replaced Colonial Parking in July of 2005. This company patrols the parking lots for cars with inadequate parking permits. The violations, monitored by an enforcement staff, are established and set by university standards.

Cantor says that parking officials enforce the permit restrictions by issuing citations on windshields of cars without a proper permit. A courtesy e-mail is usually sent the next day to students who were issued citations. This procedure tries to cut down on claims of ignorance by students.

In response to student complaints about never receiving a printout citation but having holds on their account, Cantor says, “We do get those complaints, but that is also why we send the next day e-mail to cut down on that, as sometimes we do see people take a ticket off another car and put it on theirs to make an officer think they ticketed them already, although that doesn't work.”

After a citation is issued, the student has 10 days to pay the fine or appeal it. After 10 days, a $10 late fee is added to the fine. Once 30 days pass from the issuance of the citation, another $10 is accrued. Students are responsible for paying their fines or holds will be placed on their account.

Transportation and Parking services is a self-funded operation. This operation depends on the revenue from parking permits and citations to provide the services it does, such as parking lots and shuttles.

“While Parking Services is one major part of my organization, we also have transportation which includes our shuttle contract with Reston Limo,” Cantor said, “and our commuting program, which involves bicycling, carpooling, vanpools, ridesharing, and working with the city and county on transit service, such as our subsidy to the City of Fairfax so students and employees can ride the CUE bus for free.”

Though the CUE bus is free for students, many students prefer driving to campus and are frustrated by the lack of close parking. Cantor says there is plenty of parking on campus, but not all of it is as close as students would like.

Students should plan to get to school early in preparation for parking issues. The Field House and the West Campus lot are open to student parking and both provide shuttles to campus for students’ convenience.

Several students interviewed in lot K complain about the number of parking spaces.

“There is not enough parking and it’s not close enough,” said senior Hina Rafi.

“They don’t have enough spaces,” said sophomore Brittany Halterman. “As far as the spaces that they claimed were added, it looks like the lines were redrawn to make the spaces smaller.” Halterman regularly circles lot K searching for a parking space.

Mercedes Ankomh, a second year nursing student, said that “parking spaces are limited.”

In response to student complaints about the parking expense and inconvenience, Cantor compares Mason to surrounding universities.

“Overall, in comparing Mason's fees to other large schools, we are in the mid-range and when you look at it even more, the bulk of our parking is often in much closer proximity to the center of campus than many other schools,” Cantor said, “such as University of Maryland at College Park, UVA, Virginia Tech and Penn State.”

“While about the farthest any of our students have to park is the Field House, that's about as close as most park at many other schools.” Cantor also says that the West Campus lot, where freshmen residents are required to park, is about as far as all Virginia Tech students have to park.
Students also discuss the proximity of campus parking to classroom buildings. From lot K, students have to walk around the pond to get to their classes.

“Most of the time, I carry less books than I need because they are too heavy to walk that far,” Ankomh said about walking from her car in lot K to the JC, the library and classes.

“It depends on where your classes are located,” Halterman said. “The walk is not that bad to every building on campus.”

The combination of an inadequate number of spaces, the time it takes to walk to class and the increased traffic on Tuesdays and Thursdays makes the parking process almost unbearable for some students.

“There is no doubt we are very busy, which is dictated by the class schedule, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Cantor said, “but we have never had a day where we ran out of parking. It's just that not everyone can park as close as they would like.”

Cantor says that parking services reviews each complaint about parking tickets, as well as general frustration, and takes student feedback seriously. Cantor acknowledges that each case is different and tries to be reasonable when dealing with frustrated students.