At first glance, one would think that Dartmouth would consider student parking to be a priority on campus. We do, after all, like to affectionately say that we are located in the middle of nowhere. For students who live in the New England area, it naturally makes sense to drive to and from campus. During my freshman year, commuting to and from campus meant having my father make the three-and-a-half-hour trip up I-91 to pick me up. After packing up the car, he would switch over to the passenger's seat and I would take the wheel and drive home. Largely due to the inconvenience of this commute, my parents allowed me to bring my own car up to campus when I became a sophomore, and I have had it up here ever since.
While I was familiar with the trek to A-Lot and the costly parking garage in town, I was still completely surprised by the merciless tactics of Dartmouth's Parking Operations Department. It did not take me long to realize that Parking Operations ruled over this campus with an iron fist, and would stop at nothing to take advantage of innocent students. The astronomical fines levied on students has created, to put it lightly, an adversarial relationship between parking officers and students. I cannot understand how the College can distribute $50 tickets when the town parking fine is only $10. Students would be much more likely to abide by Dartmouth's policies and pay their tickets in a timely fashion if the fine was not so unreasonable. Rather than accepting the fact that many of Dartmouth's students have no other option but to keep a car on campus and trying to accommodate them, Dartmouth has used this situation to fatten its wallet.
My first experience with the parking dictators occurred when I was unloading my car and moving into my dorm room as a sophomore. In no less than 20 minutes, I was given a $50 ticket by Parking Operations. Fortunately, I was planning to park in the town parking garage and could avoid paying the ticket by not registering my car with the school. This game continued throughout my sophomore year, as I did everything I could to avoid receiving more tickets from the College.
Fast forward to Sophomore Summer. I was paying $200 to park at a fraternity halfway across campus because the best Dartmouth could offer its students was an open lot two-thirds of a mile from the Green. I had built up about $200 in parking fines over the past few terms -- keep in mind that's only four parking tickets -- and had driven my car to the Tucker Foundation to pick up mentors so that we could drive to our program in West Lebanon. You can imagine my surprise when, after being inside the building for less than 10 minutes, I came out to find my car booted in the visitor's parking spot. Not only was I angry that Parking Operations had taken such a drastic action, but it was especially unfortunate when we were almost unable to meet with our little kids because our transportation had been immobilized.
The saga continued when I walked down to the Parking Operations office to pay my fines. In addition to demanding $250 dollars worth of parking fines, I was tagged with another $100 fine for the boot and a $50 fee for not registering my car in the first place. While at the office, I noticed a box that was literally overflowing with unpaid parking tickets, no doubt given to students for unjustified reasons. I took a minute to ask the lady at the window how my fines would be distributed in the College's budget. She told me that the fines were needed to "print the parking stickers for A-Lot." Okay, so I am supposed to believe that those tiny stickers cost thousands of dollars to produce? Furthermore, the check that I wrote to Parking Operations was not cashed for over a month. It is simply unreasonable to force students to pay ridiculous sums of money and then allow those checks to sit in some box somewhere for weeks. I wonder how the College can be so vigilant in writing tickets, yet so irresponsible after the fines are collected. It's almost as though it does not really need the money.
The reason I tell this story is not to gain sympathy -- at least not entirely. I mean to draw attention to the absolutely ridiculous policies of Dartmouth's Parking Operations Department. The College and the student body would be well-suited to work together on this issue rather than to continue to play this costly game of cat and mouse. A little leniency would go a long way.
