The AU administration has no plans for the near future to change the off-campus parking policy, according to President Neil Kerwin’s Chief of Staff David Taylor.
Any member of the AU community who parks on the residential streets surrounding campus can get a $75 ticket, The Eagle previously reported.
Undergraduate Senator Steve Dalton brought a bill to the Senate in January that calls on the university and the Department of Public Safety to more clearly define where students can and cannot park off campus.
Dalton does not think the university is sufficiently communicating with students about the current parking policy.
“Students don’t know where they can park and where they cannot,” Dalton said. “[Department of Public Safety Chief] Michael McNair said at first that the parking limits were within walking distance of campus, then he said that students cannot park anywhere near campus.”
Dalton also said that AU’s off-campus parking problem is “a self-made problem.” High on-campus parking prices are driving students to find alternative places to park, Dalton said.
Student commuters and residents had to pay $936 to park on-campus for this academic school year, according to Public Safety’s Web site.
Dalton had a suggestion for how the university should make their parking policy clearer.
“They should come out with a map and say ‘in these highlighted regions, we will have [Public Safety] officers patrolling at these times, and if you are a student parking there we will ticket you.’ That’s the bare minimum.”
McNair said that the parking policy is clear as it is now.
“All members of the university community — including students, faculty, staff, visitors and guests — are required to park on campus and obtain a parking permit, purchase hourly/daily parking using the Pay-As-You-Go machines or to use public transportation,” he said in an e-mail. “Since the requirement is to park on campus at all times, it is does not make sense to define an area off campus where students can park and avoid being ticketed.”
He stressed that the off-campus parking policy is not a Public Safety policy but an AU administration policy.
Taylor said that the parking policy is not something the AU administration developed themselves. They made the policy based on a mandate from the D.C. Zoning Commission when the administration drafted the Campus Plan in 2001.
The Zoning Commission had been receiving numerous complaints from residents living near campus about students parking in front of the residents’ houses or in their parking spots.
Taylor added that any Public Safety procedures for ticketing cars are “nuances” that would be in keeping with the university’s off-campus parking policy.
The off-campus policy will be reinstituted as it is in the new campus plan coming out next year, Taylor said.
On-campus parking prices will rise from $936 to $964 effective May 1, according to the Public Safety’s Web site.
Taylor said that students should buy an on-campus parking permit if they want to continue driving to campus without getting parking tickets.
“If you drive a car to come to campus, use campus parking — it’s simple,” Taylor said.
You can reach this staff writer at jryan@theeagleonline.com.
