Parking tickets lead to big bucks

For the week before spring break, freshman James Goldberg was able to experience a privilege usually reserved for sophomores and upperclassmen: the ability to park his car on campus.

Goldberg purchased a four-day temporary permit for $20. On the fifth day, he was greeted with a familiar sight for many drivers at the University at Albany as he walked to his car in the parking lot on Indian Quad: a purple, gold and white parking ticket that showed he now owed the university an additional $50.

“I planned on leaving early,” he said. “I went out there and everyone was leaving, the whole parking lot was empty, and I had a $50 parking ticket.”

Parking tickets bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for the university, including $542,587 during the 2008-09 fiscal year alone. The amount of citations written each year outpaces that of other State University of New York university centers, including the University at Buffalo, which has nearly twice the amount of registered vehicles on campus and collected $76,587 less than UAlbany last year, an Albany Student Press review of parking figures showed.

The university doled out 20,232 tickets from July 2009 through February of the current year, enough for each one of the 15,239 registered vehicles to be cited at least once.
Meanwhile, UB has issued 13,900 citations over the same time period with 27,635 registered vehicles, while Binghamton University had written 12,163 tickets through mid-April with 11,949 cars on the books.

Parking statistics for Stony Brook University were not immediately provided by the school.
Rose Dorsman, director of Parking & Mass Transit Services at UAlbany, said her office enforces the parking rules “fairly and adequately.”

“We do the best we can,” she said. “I don’t think we specifically go after someone who is illegally parked half an inch over the line, or anything like that,” she said. “I think we legitimately and accurately enforce.”

UAlbany has collected $353,067 in citations that were paid from July 2009 through February of this year, outpacing the previous years’ total by more than $40,000. The increase was at least partially driven by an increase to the cost of a basic parking citation in January, from $20 to $30. This comes after ticket revenue jumped by nearly $99,000 from 2007-08 to 2008-09 after the university hired an additional ticket-enforcement officer to work an evening shift.

Dorsman said the decision to increase the cost was a way to help increase compliance with the school’s parking rules, not as a way to generate revenue. The parking budget, which is about $1.5 million, is completely self-sufficient, running off of money collected from parking permits, citations, and other revenue generators.

“If the price of the ticket is a little more, students, faculty and staff become more compliant with parking rules,” Dorsman said.

The annual Parking & Mass Transit budget at UAlbany, which totals $3.2 million, is dwarfed by that at Buffalo, which is about $7 million.

UAlbany also has a policy that allows them to write an administrative citation and a parking citation on one ticket, such was the case with Goldberg. The freshman was written up for being illegally parked in a student lot, as well as having an expired parking decal.
“It’s an outrageously large amount of money, especially considering I paid $20 to park in a lot and I’m already paying $17,000 a year to go to school here,” said Goldberg, who was able to plead the ticket down to a single violation.

The multiple-citation policy is to ensure safety on campus by encouraging cars to register with the parking office, Dorsman said. None of the other SUNY university centers have such a policy.

“I would say that the norm is one violation at one particular time, at least through my experience in 10-plus years in university parking,” said Christopher Austin, assistant director of Parking & Transportation Services at UB.

Though the school has written less citations over the years, Buffalo students still have contributed their fair share toward parking and transportation on their campus. Each semester, UB students pay a $150 transportation fee that covers a parking decal and shuttle bus service, Austin said. Albany students pay just $20 a year for parking decals, though Dorsman said that amount could increase slightly in time for the Fall 2010 semester.

“With everything that has gone up, the chances are very good that the decal price will go up,” Dorsman said, adding that the price hasn’t been raised since 2003, when a decal cost just $10.80. “If it actually does happen, it would probably be no more than a $5 increase.”