Transportation director talks parking on campus

While the prices for parking passes on campus have remained the same for the past few years, any University student with a car knows that parking tickets can add up fast.

“When students park in the wrong lot, on the wrong campus and at the wrong time, they will receive multiple tickets,” said Jack Molenaar, director of the Department of Transportation Services at the University. “The parking enforcement is trained to give tickets for everything they see and then we sort them out here.”

Molenaar said the goal is not to get more money out of students. His department has come up with prices for tickets that will encourage students to purchase passes, rather than take a chance at a meter or parking lot.

“Our goal is not to catch people, it’s to enforce the rules,” he said. “We are not looking to increase our revenue, we want people to comply with the regulations.”

Abena Adu-Gyamfi, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore, said she feels the rules for parking are too complicated.

“There are different rules to follow for different times of the day and different semesters. It gets really confusing,” she said.

Molenaar said that while some of the regulations do change for different semesters, they are all available at parktran.rutgers.edu. He said lot signs have been simplified to make compliance with the rules easier.

“If we had all of the regulations on the signs, they would be huge parking signs,” he said. “We made the signs simple and easy to read and just include the basics. We used to have people try to fight the signs, so we’ve made them very simple to understand.”

He said the department uses a computer program that is synced to devices enforcement officers use to view past warnings, prior tickets and outstanding balances.

The system will also tell the parking authority when a parking permit was purchased down to the second, he said.

“We see when permits were purchased, so if someone gets a ticket and argues that they already had a permit to park in the lot, we can look up to see when it was purchased and if the ticket is valid,” he said.

Tickets can be appealed, Molenaar said. The department then investigates to see if something was out of place when the ticket was given, he said.

He said video surveillance or an officer’s description is used for the person walking away from a vehicle to verify if it was a student or a family member coming to visit.

“We will sometimes do a Facebook search to see if the student posted something about getting a ticket as proof that they were the one who parked the vehicle,” he said.

Molenaar said sometimes students would provide false information to try and get out of a ticket but are unaware of how serious of an offense it is.

“If a student provides false information in an appeal, it is treated the same as if they were caught plagiarizing a paper for class,” he said. “It has to be egregious for us to pass it on to the next level.”

Molenaar said the moment a ticket is issued, a hold is placed on the students account.

“The hold is the same as a financial hold for an unpaid term bill,” he said. “The student will be unable to register for classes or graduation until their account is brought into good standing.”

If a student racks up tickets that exceed more than $300, their car will be towed next time, Molenaar said.

If the balance is severe, the department is willing to work with the student in creating a one-time payment plan, he said.

“We will create a courtesy, one-time payment plan, bringing their account into good standing so they may register for classes or whatever they need to do,” he said. “If they miss a payment, the hold is replaced and the entire balance would then be due immediately.”

Sam Hollander, a School of Arts and Sciences senior, said he feels some tickets are given out in unfair circumstances.

“What if a friend or family member comes up to visit?” he said. “I don’t think students or visitors know how to get a one-day pass.”

University visitors can register for passes on the parking website, and a digital note will be attached to their license plate number, he said. When a public safety officer pulls up that license plate, the note will tell them they are registered.

“One of the things our officers look for are notes in the windshield and cars parked with their hazards on,” he said. “These are indications that the vehicle is not parked where it should be, or that it is not authorized by us to be parked there.”

Molenaar said tickets are given out any time a violation occurs, and they usually see a spike in tickets issued around September with the influx of new students.

“They [first-year students] hear from friends that they can park wherever they want and they learn the hard way that is not the case,” he said. “When we issue parking passes, we attach all of the regulations with them so the students have all the information they need.”

He said most violations occur in parking lots near buildings, especially on the College Avenue campus.

“It’s a part of the learning curve, especially for students from suburban areas,” he said “They are being forced to walk instead of being able to drive right up to their door. People do it in cities every day.”

Molenaar said that while the point of the tickets and passes is not to increase revenue, the funds are put right back into the system.

“We use the money we collect from the tickets to help pay for the bus system,” he said. “The funds are used to pay for more buses and drivers, as well as increasing service.”

Nick Mergel, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore, said drivers should be able to park on the streets for free instead of paying for meters.

“We should be able to use RU Express to pay for spots,” he said.

Molenaar said a new program is going to be in place at Livingston by next September called Park Mobile, a service where you can pay for the spot with your cellphone.

“[Parking] stalls will be numbered, and you can link the app on your phone to your debit card or PayPal account,” he said. “We are hoping to eventually have all of the meters on campus replaced with this system.”

He said this new system would reduce the amount of appeals the parking authority will see, and will make visitor parking on campus easier.