WSU Parking and Transportation has upgraded the parking system for this fall semester to ensure accuracy and efficiency on parking permits and tickets given to students, faculty and staff.

Chris Boyan, associate director of WSU Parking and Transportation Services, said they use enforcement as a management tool to ensure that people who have paid for parking have a reliable chance of finding a parking space.

Boyan said enforcement has been more efficient and accurate.

“We are protecting parking for people who have paid for it,” he said.

He said they look for vehicles that are violating the parking spaces, regardless of whether they are students, faculty, staff or visitors.

Christie Lee, junior business and psychology double major, said the parking is a “strict scam.”

They are quick to give out parking tickets to people who could be dealing with inconveniences like being late to class and not having enough funds, Lee said.

In some cases, she said, there were times when she received a parking ticket after a short-time period.

“These are just instances that involve me dropping stuff off, for example, [going to] to the gym super-fast,” Lee said.

According to WSU Transportation Services at a Glance, 20,481 parking warnings and citations were given during the 2018 fiscal year. 19,978 were given for the 2019 fiscal year.

Boyan said they adopted license-plate recognition technology called Virtual Permit this semester and no longer issue parking permits.

“That makes it a lot easier instead of looking at every windshield,” he said, “and scans the license plates to see if they are in the system or not.”

Princess Kay Guntalilib, a junior majoring in interior design, said last semester she had to pick up heavy equipment from Smith Center for Undergraduate Education building and parked in its lot.

“Right when I got down from the elevator and started walking to my car,” she said, “the person that was issuing the ticket told me that I had to deal with it later.”

She had the Green Three parking permit and the lot was Green One, and there are more Green One parking options around campus, Guntalilib said. She received three parking tickets during the spring semester.

Boyan said the current zone parking system that they have allows student, faculty and staff the choice to pick a lot when they buy the permit.

“It gives you the choices, the more you want to pay the closer you will park to the center of campus,” he said.

Lee said there are not enough permits to buy and the last remaining permits are expensive — somewhere between $600 and $800.

Guntalilib said she realized the school gives more parking permits than the spaces that are available.

“It is hard because everyone is there nearly around the same time, so the parking lots are always full no matter what,” she said.

Lee said she paid approximately $60- to $70-worth of parking tickets. The parking tickets add extra stress to her especially when she already pays for the school fees.

The money she pays in parking fees could be used to pay rent or buy groceries, she said.

Boyan said there are instances where a person can waive a ticket on specific circumstances.

People can submit an appeal and explain the circumstances, and they can re-appeal again but in person, he said.

“If they are still not satisfied, they can actually get the district court where the judge can review the ticket,” he said.

The appeal process is important to them because it gives people a chance to state their case to get the ticket reduced or waived, he said. They do not waive parking tickets coming from restricted spaces like fire and handicap lanes.

Lee said she wishes that WSU Parking and Transportation Services could give the people an alternative to pay, like community service.

Guntalilib said she understands people receive tickets for parking in the fire lane, but it is unfair for staff or students to be given a ticket after parking for a short time.

For people who have disabilities with a state-issued disability plaque, Boyan said there are a lot of options for parking on-campus. He suggests patrons with disabilities park in handicap parking spaces or, if they are taken, standard parking spaces.