PLYMOUTH- Last year, the cost for Plymouth State University to run the shuttle service, pay for parking enforcement, and manage the parking lots was $335,000. To the surprise of many students the money did not come out of our tuition- the majority came from parking tickets.
According to Bill Crangle, Vice President for Financial Affairs, PSU collected approximately $250,000 in parking tickets during last semester alone.
Tickets are given for many reasons including parking without a permit, parking in a lot that doesn’t correspond to your permit, and lot maintenance, which is when cars are ticketed for not moving during the designated time for their lots to be maintained in ways such as snowplowing. “Where does all that money go” and “How much is the college really making off of these tickets” are both commonly heard questions around the campus.
Crangle stated that the funds gained from parking tickets are placed in an auxiliary fund and not combined with the college’s other funds.
Crangle also stated that the money from the parking tickets is “used to pay for the cost of managing our parking lots and paying campus police for parking enforcement.”
However, the money is also used to operate a very integral part of the campus. Along with a $20,000 annual donation from the Student Senate, the parking ticket funds are used to pay for the operation of the campus shuttle service. According to Crangle the total cost of all of these services was $335,000 last year.
Crangle added that after a review of the shuttle systems operations a few years ago, ridership has gone up from about 40,000 riders per year to over 106,000 per year.
Still some students argue that the ticketing is ridiculous. When asked how he felt about PSU parking enforcement Sophomore Steve Theberge stated, “I feel that lot maintenance ticketing is too strict. It seems to me that many times the lots are not even maintained well if the cars are moved. I already paid $95 for my parking pass and now because of lot maintenance I have over $100 in ticket debt.”
Meanwhile other students argue that the money could possibly be better spent. Sophomore Tye Seastedt stated, “I’ve heard that the school pays a large amount of money for parking enforcement and lot maintenance. It seems to me that they could eliminate at least some of those funds by have the officers writing tickets driving one of the available cars in good weather, or even improve their health by walking around campus, rather than constantly leaving the cars in the parking lot and driving around in an SUV.”
When asked how he believed the parking system here at PSU works, Crangle said “I believe our campus parking works fairly well. A study done for our master plan two years ago indicated that with the exception of a couple peak hours during the day PSU had adequate parking for the demand.”