UWindsor parking fiasco finally addressed
By Leanna Roy
Lance Writer
January 27, 2010
 As the engineering building is under construction, many students are outraged at the lack of parking available to them.
Now that the biggest and most convenient parking lot has been closed, students find the need to arrive at the school earlier and earlier to ensure that they get to class on time.
Students will now be allowed to park in staff lots until a more permanent solution is reached.
Because of the lack of space available, it seems as though more and more students have been violating parking regulations as there has been a rapid increase in the amount of fines that have been issued according to members of Campus Police parking enforcement. “Some students would rather pay a $15 fine than be late for class it seems,” according to Director of Campus Police and Parking Services, Robert Cowper.
One case in particular has students rethinking their parking strategies.
A third-year student, Anthony Abut in cahoots with Mable Hindenschnober, Head of the Polar Bear Research Group of Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER) have both received fines of $300 for being involved in the most outrageous parking scandal of the decade.
Abut and Hindenschnober arranged that she would purchase a staff parking permit and receive a payment from the student to cover the cost for a staff parking lot, which is a slightly higher fee of $422.
Because the recent parking lot closure has been the cause for many students being late to class Hindenschnober decided to take a stand.
“As many as 50 per cent of my students commonly show up late to class which I have been accepting in light of the new parking crisis but it remains extremely disruptive.”
As many students have observed, Hindenschnober explains that “staff parking lots remain half empty while the vacancies can easily be afforded to students willing to pay a slightly higher fee, the fact that this is considered fraud is outrageous.”
Many other professors have spoken out in anger not toward the students’ tardiness but to the lack of lenience shown by the manager of parking services and their representatives considering they paid for the student passes expecting to have a spot to park. Hindenschnober maintains that, “$286 per academic year, should guarantee students a spot that is less than 20 minutes waiting time or walking distance from the main campus, end of story.”
In response to the $300 fine, both Hindenschnober and Abut have appealed to the Parking Appeal Committee and they have agreed that the students have been treated unfairly considering a general willingness of staff to give up their parking spaces.
In order to waive the fine, the committee approved a decision that will allow students to park in staff allotted areas with current student permits. In the future, students who wish to park in faculty parking areas (lots AA, C, E, F, and K) will have to pay the full price of $343 for the permit.
Although this does not provide a long-term solution to the lack of parking, for now, students can breathe easier and hopefully show up on time for class.
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