To University student Deborah Cole, parking at the University is nothing short of a nightmare.
Parking meters have been a recurring problem for Cole, as well as many other University students. Whether they have a dead battery, a jammed coin slot or are just plain broken, students have expressed distaste at having to pay a parking ticket for a problem that they feel is not their fault.
Rand Stamm, parking and transportation manager for the Department of Public Safety, said that when a parking meter isn’t working, DPS should be contacted immediately.
“Each meter is posted with information on what to do if the meter is broken,” he said.
Cole said the first thing she did was contact DPS when she parked in a space with a broken meter. And after she gave DPS both her license plate number and the parking meter number, Cole said she was under the impression that she would not receive a ticket.
She was wrong. When she returned to her car there was a $15 citation on her windshield.
After she petitioned the ticket, Cole was told she would still have to pay. The reason being that when a parking meter is broken, the international “no parking” sign will still register on the meter.
Stamm said there is only one instance when a broken meter won’t show the no-parking symbol, and that’s when it has completely shut down. Otherwise, he said, there will always be that symbol, visible to whoever may be parking there.
However, Cole said her meter didn’t have any sort of no-parking sign on it. She petitioned her ticket again and was told she no longer had to pay it.
University student Andrea Aanderud said she has had the same problems with broken parking meters as Cole. However, Aanderud hasn’t received a parking citation yet, partially because she drives around until she finds a meter that works.
“It’s frustrating, losing all those quarters while you’re looking for that one meter that will actually work,” she said.
Stamm said there is no way to refund money to people who lose quarters in broken meters because there is no way to track how much money a person puts into the meter.
“If you’re going to feed a meter, you need to pay attention to it,” he said.
DPS does not keep a record of how many broken meters exist at any given time on campus, but the meters are checked approximately once a week, Stamm said.
He added that one of the main reasons parking meters jam is because people intentionally jam them with everything from a misshapen quarter to a twig to super glue. Stamm said that when DPS officers are informed of a broken parking meter they fix it as soon as possible.
“What we like to do is keep them running,” he said. “We work really hard to keep them functioning.”
DPS is anticipating $305,000 in parking meter revenue and $375,000 in citation revenue for the 2003–04 fiscal year, which began July 1, 2003 and ends June 20, 2004.
Students can contact DPS with more questions at (541) 346-5444.