Maryland Newsline

Series: Parking Headaches in College Park Part I: College Park Ticket Thicket: City,  Some Businesses Benefit from Meters, But Customers Flinch Table: Parking ticket comparisons for four municipalities in Prince George's Part II: Parking on UMD Campus: A Recipe for Frustration? Graphic: A comparison of tickets and revenues collected at UMD/College Park and 10 other universities and towns shows UMD is tops.

By Kathleen Johnston Jarboe
Maryland Newsline
Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2002

Second of two parts

Although officials have been working to improve it, the parking situation on the University of Maryland’s College Park campus is still less than ideal.

Three out of four of the university's 33,189 students live off campus, according to a Fall 2000 study by the Office of Institutional Research and Planning. And a 1998 Commuter Affairs and Community Service survey found that 87 percent of those students drove to campus for classes.

Yet there are only 6,811 spaces set aside for student commuters, and another 2,969 for students who live on campus, according to the Department of Campus Parking. 

David Allen, director of campus parking, said that disparity between student spaces and student commuters doesn't necessarily mean there's a shortage of parking. 

Students aren’t all on campus at the same time, he said. Thus the department can sell more parking permits than the number of spaces available in lots. 

When assigned lots are full, students can park in an overflow lot, Allen said.

But interviews with students reveal frustrations: Competition for spots can often lead to parking tickets, they say.

It's "horrible," said graduate student Glenn Knapp, noting it used to be impossible to find parking in Lot 1 if he didn't arrive early in the day. The recent construction of a garage next to Byrd Stadium, near Route 193, has helped, he said.

Patrick Wu, a commuter legislator for the Student Government Association, was more circumspect. "Even though [parking] is a problem, the university is doing everything in [its] power to alleviate it," he said. 

Last year, the university issued 115,189 parking tickets and collected $2.4 million in parking fines, according to a 2001 parking report. When the university's totals are combined with the city's, they come to about 160,000 tickets and about $3.5 million in ticket revenues--more than any other university-host town totals looked at in an informal Newsline survey of 10 other campuses around the country. (See accompanying graphic.)  

Newsline looked at colleges where student enrollment closely approximated the town population's, since such an enrollment has the potential to overwhelm town infrastructures and prompt a response from the town. 

The campus and town with the closest parking ticketing and revenue totals to the University of Maryland's and College Park's were Texas A&M University and College Station, Texas. They collectively issued 137,290 parking tickets and received $2.4 million in parking ticket revenue in the most recent years for which information was available. That revenue total is $1.1 million less than that collected at the University of Maryland and College Park.

Richard Stimpson, assistant vice president for student affairs at the University of Maryland, said the university does not "set out to write tickets to make a certain amount of money.” He added, “They are written because each of us chooses at some time to park inappropriately.”

Allen said ticketing policies “encourage [students] to comply with the regulations so that those who pay for a parking space have the opportunity” to park.

Ticket revenue goes toward new parking projects, garages and debt on previously constructed garages, Allen said.

Following advisory committee suggestions, the university created the garage next to Byrd Stadium as an hourly pay lot, supervised by a cashier. That decision, and the exchange of meters for cashiers at many other lots, came after a study found that 45 percent of tickets were issued for meter violations on campus.

“As the number of parking meters on campus continues to be reduced, it is expected that eventually the number of overall tickets will also be reduced,” the department said in its 2000 parking report.

However, while the number of meter violations went down, the university had more resources to find other violators, the report said, going after those parking outside their assigned areas and not displaying permits.

The problem for students has become one of convenience. John Kuhns, a senior majoring in business, said he got one of his tickets when he parked in a lot to run a quick errand in an adjacent building.

Chang Han, a sophomore with an undeclared major, said he received eight or nine tickets in the last year while trying to park closer to classes. He was assigned a permit in Lot 4 -- a 10- to 15-minute walk to his biology classes. 

While the university is now constructing its first garage on the south side of campus, officials say convenient parking isn’t their priority.

Stimpson noted that there are master planning principles to follow in placing garages on the periphery of campus. The placement makes the campus more pedestrian friendly by reducing traffic congestion near its center and grassy mall area.

“We can't build a parking garage on the mall,” he said.

Copyright © 2002 University of Maryland College of Journalism