So, you’ve decided to bring your
car to RIT and leave your carbon
footprint all over campus.
You may have peeked at the Parking
and Transportation Services’
website and noticed that they’re a
little vague about fines and claim
to be a little extreme in their punishment.
Yes, it says that your car
can be impounded, but unless you
find a way to park your car in President
Destler’s office, I wouldn’t
worry about the tow trucks.
Fines, however, are a reality and
can vary depending on the severity
of the parking job. Strangely
enough, the more obvious the
parking offense, the lower the fine.
Parking in a fire lane or landscaped
area will only set you back $18,
while parking in a reserved space
will cost you $30.
Now, you may be thinking that
you’ll never get caught sneaking
into that reserved spot behind the
SAU in U-Lot at 4:58 p.m. (two minutes
before it becomes fair game to
anyone on wheels), but if you do
there will be a ticket on your windshield
before your wipers come to
a complete stop. Being prime parking,
U-Lot boasts security on par
with the Vatican. But G-Lot behind
Building 7 is a safe haven for illegally
parked cars and unregistered
vehicles (at least until Public Safety
reads this article).
Perhaps the most confusing and
frustrating ticketing practice is
double ticketing — a practice that
Student Government was looking
into discontinuing at the end of
last year, but may still be with us
for some time. Regardless, double
ticketing is the reason why your
windshield may greet you with
one ticket for not having a reserved
parking pass, and a second
for parking in a reserved parking
space. This is logically the same offense,
and if you take it up with the
Public Safety office next to Gracie’s,
you might make one magically go
away. If the tickets are for the exact
same offense, note the times.
If they were issued 15 minutes
apart while you were in a class,
you can try to argue that you had no
opportunity to move your vehicle.
A ticket can be appealed up to 10
days after it was issued. Go to the
office mentioned above and state
your case politely. For example,
if you’re driving an unregistered vehicle
on campus and you receive a
ticket for it, you can argue that you
didn’t have enough time to register
it with Parking and Transportation
Services, and they will probably
make it disappear when you rectify
the situation by registering.
Last year, Parking and Transportation
Services held a series of open
forums and open focus groups to
discuss improvements to parking
on campus. Help may be on the
way, but consider this: If freshmen
only use their vehicles for the occasional
excursion into the city, then
there’s no problem to address.
