OUR VIEW: Rising parking fees rub against the grain

Every year students pay close attention to ASUSU to see how much student fees will go up and to Tier I and Tier II tuition to know how much money to start stuffing into their piggy banks. You thought you had it covered, didn’t you? You thought you had an eye on all moving targets.

    Now students have been hit with yet another fee increase, but from a different direction. This time it came from the Parking and Transportation Advisory Committee in the form of slightly higher parking meter fees and more expensive permits.

    The increased fines will go toward paying off the school’s loan for the big new parking garage on the west side of campus. The garage hasn’t filled up as hoped and the money has to come from somewhere. So instead of increasing the cost just for the people who are using the garage, the burden is falling on all students and faculty who park on campus.
 

   The justice of this is questionable. Why should people who aren’t using the $7.5 million terrace have to pay off the cost of building it? The burden should fall on those who have permits for the terrace or who just want to leave their car there for a few hours.

    The cost of permits has only gone up a few dollars, and the cost of a half hour at a meter only costs a few cents more, but as expenses mount up, students start to panic.
Most things get more expensive over time. Whether the terrace had been built or not, and whether the Living and Learning Center had been finished on schedule and in time to fill it right away or not, the fees would have gone up to cover some other rising expense.

    It just rubs against the grain to have that expense be due to poor planning.