posted
I was wondering if this is common practice and I'm getting annoyed for no reason...
I work at a state university. We all got our notices today to send in our $15 for our parking tags. This allows us to park in the faculty parking lots. This really isn't a great advantage.
Anyway, we get paid pathetic salaries or wages. The idea that we have to pay for parking is offensive to me. I am not aware of any other business that actually has their employees pay for the privilege of parking in their lots.
So... do YOU pay for parking where you work? What sort of place do you work for?
posted
When I worked at Cornell we paid between $200-$400 a year for the priviledge of parking in one of the worst lots on campus, others pay closer to $600-$700 for better lots.
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
It is pretty funny here. I don’t pay. There is a street of free parking just below us and also under the bridge is a free lot that people use. But for some reason the paid lot across the building is full all the time. It’s like $30 a month. I don’t get it. It’s not that far of a walk to the free lot.
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wow. That $15/year is looking pretty good based on that...
Were you at least getting paid decently?
I can understand charging students for parking. I can not understand charging faculty and staff. It's our job to be there. We're providing a service (our job), and we shouldn't have to pay for the privilege.
It's just as wrong at Cornell.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Cornell tries to discourage parking. They offer free bus passes to any staff or faculty member who doesn't get a parking permit.
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I pay nothing, but then I work at a chemical plant. Outside our main gate there are two good-sized lots and you just park wherever.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, they don't offer alternatives here. So, they're not discouraging parking. It's not like staff and faculty have anywhere else to park. The student lots cost too, and we don't have student tags on our cars, obviously. They offer alternatives to students, like if they live in a nearby apartment complex they can ride the bus. Last year, they started picking up students in a nearby Target parking lot.
Yes, parking is insane, but charging faculty/staff for parking changes absolutely nothing in regards to the limited parking for students. We would still have the same faculty spaces, which are adequate--barely.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
No. It's the same fee whether you're a Vice President or a janitor. I was one step up from a janitor.
And the free bus pass would be great if the bus system didn't suck for getting you anywhere other than between campus and downtown. When I was living in Trumansburg, I had the option of taking a 20-minute drive to campus, or a 50-minute bus ride, on a bus that required me to get to work either half an hour early or half an hour late, and leave either half an hour early or half an hour late. And now that I'm living out on route 79, I can choose to take the ONE bus that stops in front of our neighborhood ONCE in the morning, which has been either half an hour EARLY or half an hour late, or hasn't shown up at all the few times I've tried to take it.
posted
Most staff at Cornell can't afford to live in the City of Ithaca, so yeah, a huge number of them need to commute from places like Trumansburg, Lansing, Caroline, Newfield... and sure, the bus runs out to those places, but it's generally pretty unreliable and takes an enormous chunk of time out of your day.
The last time I needed to take the bus around here I had to go from rt. 79 and Pine Tree Rd. (about a mile and a half from campus) out to Etna Rd. and Pinckney (a little past the airport). There's no single bus that takes that route, but I figured it wouldn't be a problem because my window of time between transfers would be at least 15 minutes. Well, the first bus was more than 15 minutes late, so I missed the transfer and had to wait, stranded, an hour and a half for the next bus. When that bus came, we made it all the way out to Etna Rd. before the bus broke down, about two miles from where I needed to get to. So I walked the rest of the way. The replacement bus passed me just as I reached my stop. On the way home, I got out to the stop 10 minutes early, just in case. It was an unsheltered stop, and I was in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. I waited 40 minutes for the bus. Finally one came, after I'd collected a great number of mosquito and horsefly bites. Since it was so late, I again missed my transfer bus and had to stand out in the storm again for 30 minutes.
And by the time I got home my dog had peed on the rug. Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I really don't know. I don't live very far away, but it's way too far if I were walking. Not to mention I'd have to walk through some scary places.
I guess I live about 5-10 minutes away by car. There are some faculty that live closer, I think. They might be able to walk, but I'm not sure.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Except for faculty and high up administrators, I think everyone else in the university system, anywhere in the country, is grossly underpaid as a rule.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
When I worked for the county hospital downtown, I paid approximately $22 every two weeks, deducted from my paycheck, for parking. There is no other place to park, so you either have to pay or take public transit (which is lousy from where I live to where the hospital is).
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Even faculty get paid low wages, especially for their education level. But they can still afford pretty houses, so I'm not as sympathetic.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
Tenured faculty at a major university can make 70K or upwards a year, and still work for 3-4 months in the summer consulting.
A lot of my engineering profs worked summers and made more money in those months than the whole rest of the year.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Have you considered a bike? It may take longer (especially if you want to take a quick shower afterwards in the college's lockerrooms or wherever), but you get in your exercise for the day, and you save money on parking AND gas.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, I pay $30 per month to park near where I work.
Mainly because I'm in the heart of downtown. Only those who work in Downtown Wichita have the duty of paying for parking. Most anywhere else in the city, there is ample free space.
I could opt for the higher parking garage (instead of open lot) but choose not to.
However, my wonderful employer has just found a way to have parking included as a "pre-tax" deduction from our paychecks, instead of post-tax.
quote:Originally posted by ElJay: I pay $150/month to park at work. Feel better?
Wow, Eljay, that's rediculous. I thought $22 and change every two weeks was bad. Hope you get paid well. Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
My employer has a parking lot, but it's limited to a few certain employees. I'm not one of them. I park on the street or, if someone from the newsroom is gone, I might take their spot (if someone hasn't beat me to it). Those without assigned spots are supposed to either buy their own passes to a city lot a block away or use a free lot 3 blocks away. I don't use that lot because I work nights and don't want to walk over there at night. (Plus, I'm lazy ).
I worked at our local community college for a short time (working for a temp agency). They used to have assigned spots for faculty - the spots nearest the buildings. When the current president got his job there, he canceled that, saying something to the effect that the students were the most important. So, anyone can park anywhere, pretty much. There's no charge there. They are building a parking ramp, too.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm not in shape enough for a bike. Not in the least. I'd have to lose a lot of weight first and get into an exercise routine. (Actually, that sounds like a great idea. Not the bike riding..but getting READY for the bike riding.) Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I did pay for parking where I worked back when I did work, although I stopped doing that when I learned I could park at the zoo for free and just walk to my workplace. I do pay for parking near my apartment building. $35 a year. You would think parking around your building would be included in your rent or something, but it's not. Oh well.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I believe I paid $330 for Sept-May (9 months) to park at the parking lot in front of my lab building. Surrounding the lab building is only 2-hour parking so you don't have much choice if you need to drive. It's the fee for staff-lot academic-year parking at Brown. I think over the summer it switches to something awful like $60 a month. I stayed for three weeks into June, and got free day-pass parking each day instead of paying the extra $60. It was just a nuisance, you had to pick up a tag in the morning, put it on your car, then at the end of work you had to take off the tag and return it to the office.
I believe there are parking lots downtown in Providence that range from $60-100 a month.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
City of Chicago - daily parking rates range from about $15 (if you can get into the lot during their "early bird" hours) up to as much as $28. My building is at $22 currently. MONTHLY rate in my building is $285, which is a huge savings if you have to drive every single day compared to paying every single day, but still a heckuvalot of money. And I know there are downtown garages charging more than $300 a month.
Thank heavens for mass transit!
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wow. Goody, your parking fees would take nearly a third of my entire paycheque. That strikes me as really funny, in a way. Well, at least I would have free parking if I ever drove to work, I guess. The one benefit to working at a minimum wage coffeeshop...
Posts: 624 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Luxury! I pay $50 a day to walk to work, have to get up at 3:00 AM because it's a 34-mile walk on a sidewalk paved with broken glass and live earthworms, barefoot since I can't afford the extra $10 a day to use shoes, and when I get there I lay down in front of the building so the faculty can park their cars on my back!
posted
At UCF (University of Central Florida) the students pay 100 - 150 for a parking pass and there is not enough parking spaces for all the cars they sell passes to. I understand haveing to pay for parking as a student, but if we are going to pay that much at least build some more parking lots or garages!!
Posts: 218 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's what I call the "Pay for Basic Cable with Ads/Manuere Costs HOW Much?" business approach.
You have to set all Ethics aside for it however.
It's basically, attach a small price to everything including something worhless. You may have a small group of customers at first, but once they either A. get used to the price, or B. decide they can't live without it, you raise the price again, and again, and again.
It's only fault or failure is if 100% of the people refuse to pay or your operating expenses outweigh your revenue.
Smart Business Sense (ethics aside), but will it ever go over the top and lead to mass revolt?
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I work in Hollywood now where parking has been an ongoing problem for years along with many surrounding cities in the Los Angeles area. I pay $80 a month to get to park in our office building's underground parking lot. There is very little chance of me finding a free parking spot on the street at off-hours let alone during times of business.
My sister lived in Venice for awhile, and she along with the other locals made it a habit of not leaving that community on the weekend for fear of losing their parking spots. Public parking in venice ranges anywhere from $15-25 dollars a day.
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
NdRa, at first I thought you were talking about Venice in Italy and got all confused because you definately can't park there.
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I stayed with friends in Venice a few weeks ago, and when we were walking back from the beach, two carloads of people pulled over to ask us if we were walking back to our car, so they could take our spaces. Wow!
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
I'm paying $444 for a year of parking at the state university where I work--a rate that's probably gone up at least $100 over the past 3-4 years--and it still takes me 10 minutes to walk from my car to my office. It's the cheaper, "nonreserved" surface lot option, which means that there are more permits sold than spaces available, and if I can't find a place to park, they're not even obligated to be sympathetic. The plains states may be known for wide-open spaces, but they're not parking spaces!
Posts: 7 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
My father and stepmom pay for parking- I have no idea how much but it's in the hundreds for six months.
Posts: 944 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm a home care nurse. I only have to pay for parking if I'm seeing a patient who lives on a street with parking meters. In my part of New Jersey, that's pretty rare.
One of the best things about New Jersey -- plenty of parking.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I pay $200 a year to park at the University of Utah staff parking. Students pay $120 or $60 depending on how much they want to walk. The most that one can pay for parking is a 24 hour reserved spot and it goes for $1190 a year. Most of the student body commutes and so there is not enough parking, and they keep doing more and more construction getting rid of more and more parking spaces. They just got light rail to the campus, and it is pretty heavily used.
Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
$120 per year. Not bad, considering the cost of parking on the street, and the fact that the transit system would now not only be highly inconvenient (and generally not go where I need to) but cost more.
Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
).![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
