Ever since The Carnegie Foundation named UH a Tier One research institution, the school has been sent into a frenzy of refurbishment and revitalization. UH has been revamping its campus for years now and new buildings have been sprouting left and right.
For the most part, the school has made accommodations to cope with the influx of new students — as would be expected from a “Tier One” university — except in one area: parking and transportation.
Sure, there are plans in the works for new garages, but these plans have been lagging behind other buildings — which have been built over the course of a few months. In the meantime, students get citations and just plain ridiculous fines.
Parking tickets are nothing more than a form of racketeering at this school. The basic principle is you pay UH money for a parking sticker. The parking sticker allows you into lots that allegedly protect your vehicle from the surrounding area.
If you can’t find a parking spot in the extremely insufficient parking lots, you can park in any spot and undoubtedly receive a fine.
After all, you don’t want to be late for class, right?
If a fine is not paid within 21 days, the fine doubles and UH automatically adds the cost to your bill, effectively giving you less time to collect money than a landlord does for rent.
Students can either fight the system and appeal the ticket, or pay the ticket in less than 48 hours, reducing the price of the fine.
The latter gives students incentive not to argue with the University and simply pay up. The fact that a parking ticket has to be appealed online proves they either don’t want to face students’ legitimate anger or that they don’t have a staff large enough to deal with their parking and transportation problems.
The process can only be laughed at in the most sardonic fashion because the underlying message is obvious: Screw your concerns and pay us our money.
Of course, anyone could take the METRO and avoid parking altogether if they’re willing to constantly deal with untrustworthy buses and wait for up to an hour and a half, depending on geographic location.
Students should castigate this entire process when appealing their tickets and should take complete offense to this deplorable way of siphoning money.
Be blunt to an institution that is indifferent to your wallet. UH parking is laughing at students all the way to the bank.
Nick Bell is a media production senior and may be reached at [email protected].
Lol. Again with the METRO hate? Have you ever even tried using METRO? I have reason to doubt so because the only really “untrustworthy” bus is #30. The many others, I find, are within reasonable time schedules (upto 5-10 minutes late). Also the wait time isn’t bad considering it can cost anything from $0.63 to $2.88 just for a one-way ride. In that time, I’ve seen people study, read textbooks, etc. It’s doesn’t have to be unproductive time.
I would’ve expected negative remarks from you, based on your other article where you mostly leaned towards pointing out the so-called “negative” effects of having light rail near campus (most of which were very disputable).
I’m not saying that the parking situation is pretty bad, considering many choose to commute via car to school, but the negative bits about public transit are somewhat unnecessary. It’s kinda rude to us transit users that do take it to UH (sometimes as a choice, sometimes not), and I think I would expect a bit more praise to those of us who do not take up parking spaces by using alternative methods.
I know co-workers that try to bike to UH when they can from their apartment about 2-3 miles away from school (with a decent bike trail), people that live on campus (as myself), people that strive to carpool, and of course METRO users. If every student tried to find a way to avoid car use, instead of the usual ‘me’ attitude, I bet there’d be a lot less need to build expensive parking garages and lots. But being selfless isn’t convenient apparently.
Also, the METRO Q card sold on campus to students/faculty/staff is a great bargain, sometimes cutting over 60% of your fare costs, and allowing free transfers from bus to bus, or bus to rail. I personally cannot wait until the light rail line is complete.
If you park in the right lot, you shouldn’t have a ticket. If you come early enough, it shouldn’t be a problem of being late to class. Maybe the parking capacity isn’t ideal, but you can totally avoid the system of fines. When you park at another spot you’re not entitled to, another person who is entitled to such a space can’t access it. If you somehow get a ticket for reasons you think do not apply, then of course appeal it.
I don’t understand why people whine about something that’s aviodable in many ways. I have a license myself, but that doesn’t make me feel entitled to anything. This is called the costs of having a car. Parking spaces are a lost opportunity for the university, with space that could be filled with something more productive. Just accept responsibility if you go against the system.
LOL on your comment. You just generalized and put in the same box all students at UH. First of all some maybe late, but they paid for the spot, so something that you pay for should be available to you at all times. I for example work and I take afternoon classes so I arrive there 40 minutes before the class starts which means, based on your conclusion I am not late but early. I assume that your “business perspective” comes from the business school there since you mentioned the opportunity cost…BTW this is not the opportunity cost because the UH accumulates huge revenue from selling these parking lots. So, since the UH sells the same spot to multiple people ( Which is complitely illegal by the law), where is the opportunity cost? lol
I live on campus and I don’t want to leave my dorm sometimes. I dread doing errands on the weekdays because I know finding a parking spot will be an issue when I come back. Yes, I can take the Metro, but consider the hassle when you come back with bags of groceries.
I agree, having lived on campus myself before. Sometimes when I did grocery shop, and used the METRO, I found reusable cloth bags to be much handier with higher capacity and better strength to make the trip bearable.
Or if that’s not feasible, making friends on campus and shopping together by carpooling could help save gas money and reduce the parking issue a bit. Also, if you just care to drive occasionally, I’ve heard the Hertz on Demand cars around either Cougar Village or the Lofts are handy for special trips like that. At $8 an hour, it’s not a bad deal since it covers gas and insurance though you do need a membership.
This is ridicilous and illegal as well. The UH Main Campus sold me a parking sticker to park my car while attending classes for the parking lot that does not exist. Mainly, the UH sells the same parking lot for many times, so you are never able to park. Most of the times after not being able to park I go to garage visitors parking and pay for three hours $9, but this week they dont allow us to use the visitors parking either. On Wednesday I was circuling around and trying to find the parking spot and almost gave up and went back home. I also paid few parking citations. This really needs to stop.
I’m an avid supporter of METRO, and I have to disagree. From my years of riding, METRO has one of the most reliable systems in the nation. In addition, NO routes have an hour and a half wait, trust me! (The only time it would ever get close to that is If you caught a bus on the edge of town at 2:30am on a Saturday). Almost all of the routes adjacent to UH have frequencies of 30 minutes or less the entire weekdays, with some frequencies as low as 15 minutes during peak hours.
And have you ever seen Scott St. without a bus on it? Yeah, didn’t think so…
Coogs, be sure to check out http://www.uh.edu/wordonthestreet, your new one-stop shop for all things parking, transportation and UH coming straight to you from Bob Browand, the director of the University’s Parking and Transportation Services Department.
Racketeering from a University. ..quite typical, trust me. However, this school is also extremely low on customer service.. They fail to send paperwork off to the VA from financial aid, lose paperwork in enrollment, and both offices have dropped the ball numerous times during the communications it took to fix the problems they created. Money failed to get to me in time…late rent, bills, ect…turned into a nightmare. Now a parking ticket from a school I will bad-mouth for the rest of my life. Social media will see the fury this school has stirred. Ive attended other colleges in TX, NY, FL, and NM. This is by far THE MOST INCOMPETENT. If I had it my way this school would never see another semester.