At Michigan State University student drivers are paying the price while the university strives for environmental sustainability.

Pedestrians and alternative modes of transportation are emphasized in MSU’s 2020 Vision campus master plan, the University’s overall guide to campus development, leaving student motorists the big losers.

Parking Alternatives

“We are trying to make sure we aren’t just paving paradise putting up parking lots,” MSU Campus Planner Steve Troost told Sparty Secrets. “We’re really trying to push alternative modes of transportation, not just accommodate the car.”

Students who live in the dorms are encouraged to walk to class, while students who live off campus can ride on the CATA bus system to campus for 50 cents.

Students who still choose to drive to campus are encouraged to buy commuter permits for $65 a year. These permits allow students to park at the commuter lots located south of campus on Mt. Hope Rd., nearly a 40-minute walk from north campus. There are plans to expand the commuter lots in the future and to build a pedestrian underpass under the train tracks on Farm Lane.

MSU Senior Ryan Bush parked at the commuter lot his entire sophomore year. He said his experience parking there was horrible because the lot is too far away to walk to class and the bus doesn’t run to the commuter lot frequently enough.

“Now I just catch the bus, it’s a very efficient system I’m not gonna deny it, but if you need to use your car you need to use your car, there needs to be a more efficient system for parking,” he said.

Now when he drives to campus, like many drivers at MSU, he uses metered parking or parks illegally instead of parking at the commuter lots. But metered parking at MSU is expensive, heavily enforced and oftentimes hard to find.

The Metrics of Metered Parking

During busy times the metered spots at the Shaw ramp in the center of campus are usually filled. Over the past two years, Troost said the university has removed 130 metered parking spots on the north side of campus, where students are now prohibited from parking all together.

Metered parking on campus ranges from $1.25 to $1.60 an hour. Metered violations are $10 if paid within 24 hours. After that fees are raised to $15 dollars and after a week $25 dollars. If six tickets are left unpaid, parking enforcement tows the car at the owner’s expense.

Some students complain that parking enforcement often tickets the moment meters expire.

“Every time I turn around I have a ticket on my car and I’ve spent probably about $700 dollars a year on just parking just because the parking issue at MSU is so bad,” said Trisha Tarjeft, an MSU advertising senior.

In 2006 Michigan State University Police issued more than 124,000 parking tickets, nearly three times as many tickets as there are students at MSU. The university collected nearly five million dollars in revenue from tickets and permits plus an additional one million dollars from paid metered parking.

With these numbers it should come as no surprise that MSU Parking is a self-supported operation. Parking revenues are used to pay for campus roadway construction projects like the removal of the traffic circle on the Red Cedar Rd. and Wilson intersection as well as to pay off debts from the Grand River ramp project.

A sizable percentage of the Michigan State University Police budget comes from parking revenues.

Chris Tyranski, a parking enforcement officer and an MSU student, said students usually take out their frustration on him.

“I actually had a guy threaten to shoot me the other day.”

According to Tyranski students try to avoid paying for parking but rarely get away with it. Many students put old parking tickets on their windshields hoping that he will skip them or ignore their car they have already been ticketed, but every ticket he sees is actually a calling sign that the car is parked illegally.

Another tactic some students use is backing their cars all the way into the wall so that he can’t get their license plate number.

“There was only one time we couldn’t get a cars license plate number but if we really want to get you we’ll just have you towed.”

As for the future, Steve Troost told Sparty Secrets MSU is considering switching to a tiered parking system, which is structured around the needs of drivers. In that system drivers who want to park at a central location will have to pay considerably more than those willing to park further away from campus.