California State University East Bay

The Pioneer

California State University East Bay

The Pioneer

California State University East Bay

The Pioneer

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Parking Fees and Tickets are “Ridiculous,” Students Say

Students worry enough about paying tuition and finding a way to afford textbooks, but CSUEB’s campus community has become increasingly irate with expensive parking passes and tickets.

“Parking is ridiculous now,” said Navdeesh Gill, an alumni of CSUEB. “I used to pay $30 when I went to East Bay back in 2006 and I thought that was too much money. Students are already broke, yet they still find any way possible to get our money.”

Parking pass prices have long been an issue that students have raised with administrators, but this has recently been overshadowed by the ever-rising prices of parking fines.

Parking attendants on campus can administer $49 tickets if a meter expires, the parking permit is displayed improperly, the car has no front license plate, and the vehicle is parked more than 18” from the curb.

Other parking citations, which can be found online on CSUEB’s web page, can put you out as much as $275.

Where does all of this money collected from students, faculty and staff go?

According to the school’s website, just under a million dollars of these fines collected in 2008 were used to fund student financial aid from the 2007 fiscal year and $250,000 was set aside for student scholarships.

While most students probably wouldn’t object to money being used to pay financial aid and fund scholarships, the issue of available parking spaces is still unsolved.

“Parking this fall is terrible,” said Sherrelle Smith, a current CSUEB student. “You have to come to school literally 30 minutes before class because it takes 20 minutes to find a parking space.”

Derrick Lobo, the parking services coordinator, explained there are 4,450 spaces in total, 3,332 are for students and 1,118 are for faculty. After 5 p.m. all faculty parking becomes student parking, a free for all for students and faculty.

A new parking structure, currently in the planning phase, is hoped to ease some of the parking lot tension and is also to blame for the sky-high parking fees.

The entire project is estimated to cost about $24.5 million, take about 15 months to build and will have 1,100 more parking spaces.
“Fees and all citations will fund a new parking structure for students and fees will not go up for the next 3 years,” explained Lobo. “After that 3 years, fees for parking passes will go down.”

In the meantime, parking services has tried to give students, faculty and staff some options.

Lot A has been opened up as additional parking for students since many staff members that worked in Warren Hall have moved to the administration building and an option of buying an hourly parking pass has been added.

CSU East Bay has also brought back the free shuttle that runs straight from campus to the B Street BART station, allowing students to park at the free parking there.

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California State University East Bay
Parking Fees and Tickets are “Ridiculous,” Students Say