Too bad the college wasn’t getting all that revenue! So does the guy walking around with a list of license plate numbers? You would think that looking in the window for a ticket stub would be more efficient unless they have some kind of license plate recognition setup. Hmmm I wonder how much that system costs?

I suspect the guy would have some sort of device that he can use to enter a plate number and get an instant response as to whether they paid, the time the ticket expires, etc. Probably is easier that shuffling between a bunch of parked cars, looking for the proper ticket amongst the 4 or 5 sitting on the dash, sweeping snow off of the windshield, etc.

As a parker, this is also better because you don’t have to run back to your car to place the ticket once you buy it. They have a similar system here in Ottawa where you can pay for parking on your cell phone. You can even add time if you are running late or have a change of plans without having to head back to your car. It’s actually pretty slick and a good use of technology IMHO.

I think the bigger question is whether we should be charging students for parking in the first place. The rates don’t seem that crazy, but it’s not like most students have buckets of cash in the first place.

This is a huge injustice to students many of whom don’t even have jobs.

Impark making millions off of the students, so politicians can cut their operating budgets for the post secondary institution is just not right.

Impark is a joke.
A few winters ago I backed my truck in beside another truck, also backed in, in the lot. Of course the lot hadn’t been plowed, and there was no possible way of seeing where the lines were. When I came out about an hour later, the other truck was gone and I had a ticket for improper/double parking or something along those lines which was complete bs. Tried calling the number several times to dispute only to be stuck on hold for up to 30 minutes at a time. Ended up paying the $30 only because I didn’t want to spend an entire day on the phone to argue with someone in Vancouver about a snow covered parking lot.

Parking for full-time students should be included with their tuition.

Remember, these are “students” with cars!!

In my day students with little money had no cars.

Choose your residence of choice wisely, based on best public transportation system access. First lesson in “streetsmarts” when going to College.

It matters little whether a student has a car or not. The fact of the matter is taxpayers/tuitions pay for

1. All the buildings and maintenance.

2. All the salaries and benefits for those who work at the College.

3. All the salaries and wages for all the Government workers who earn their living off College’s and Universities, etc;

4. We also paid for the parking lots. So there is no need to stick it to students.

This is absolute BS, same thing at the University, and at the Regional Hospital.

The mantra seems to be. **Skin the little guy so the fat cats can live high off the hog**

Time to make some changes.

The fact of the matter is taxpayers pay for part of the costs of building and operating the college and every part of it.

Tuition pays for an amount around 25% of the total cost.

Students who are in College residence pay for living there. Student parking is a user fee. Why should the taxpayer or the students who have no cars subsidize those who do?

The basic idea of parking fees is to try to get people to pool their driving or use public transit, etc.

The parking lots were getting full at critical times. People were parking on the roads even though parking as free. That spells overcrowding. Overcrowding means build additional parking. There is limited space. Limited space means a parking structure. Parking structure means more costly per car expenses which someone will have to pay for. …

I am not sure how many can follow that thinking process.

In the case of the hospital and other medical facilities, the current system has another disadvantage namely the need to walk from your vehicle to the pay station and back. When patients are driving themselves and are not feeling well, the additional walk can be a real hassle. The system just installed at CNC solves this problem but I’d rather see parking treated as part of the cost of operating medical facilities.

The college gets very little or nothing from Impark. In return Impark pays for all the maintenance done to the parking lots. So blame Impark for the costs not the college.

Those poor students have 100.00 plus a month cell bills too!

I doubt they scan the parking lot, for which vehicle has an expired ticket, as with this system it will give them the plate of the expired ticket. They can then know exactly when to head out to find the vehicle, versus just going around in the lots, hoping to find an expired ticket. Given the small geographical area with each parking dispenser, it would be easy to find the vehicle, assuming they stayed close to the original machine.

Students who don’t want to pay for parking can use the bus pass included in their students fees. The average construction cost of a parking spot comes at about $15,000 a pop, plus all the maintenance costs thereafter, and you think a $2.25 daily fee is injustice? Anyone who owns a vehicle and thinks they are entitled to a free place to park everywhere they needs to get their head adjusted. Maybe a economics 101 will help?

Provincial land is ours. Provincial parks are ours. We should get free camping at provincial parks. We should not have to reserve ahead. A place should be there for us wherever and whenever we arrive. {;-)

gus, did you really need to include the sentence “I am not sure how many can follow that thinking process”? Who died and made you the all-knowing one?

Well I don’t need economics 101 to know that it didn’t take $15 million to pave the gravel pit that became CNC parking lot. Maybe $15,000 per parking space in a parkade in downtown Vancouver….

My thinking is that education should be an equal opportunity based on merits, so that the best and the brightest go on to lead our nation… not a privilege of the elite. Most students now days have more in student debt then their parents paid for their first home.

At CNC they never had a parking space shortage. I know I was attending classes there at the time of the change to pay parking… it was brought in over Christmas holidays and not even the staff at CNC were made aware of it until after the fact. It was purely about removing a couple of hundred thousand from the operating budget to deal with cuts to funding, at the expense of millions to a private for profit parking lot maintenance company. The students would have been far better off in the long run having tuition increased to pay for parking lot maintenance if the government would no longer fund the operating budget.

It was originally an untendered contract to a sole bidder and was awarded at something like 5-fold increase over what a local company (ACME) said they could have done the maintenance for.

It was simply a matter of politicians awarding a contract to friends, so that they could make huge profits over captive students. It was an aggressive regressive taxation attack on free enterprise in education.

PG is a mostly rural town. Some students drive to school at CNC everyday from as far away as Fraser Lake and Vanderhoof. The city simply does not have the public transportation to meet a college school schedule. For some having a parking space is essential to attending school. Its not an option as some would suggest. Some students are not even kids, they are full grown adults some with kids at home, some on disability or single parents… trying to get by and make a future for themselves… sticking them with parking fees and fines is an insult to their attempts to better themselves.

That is my thinking.