Students grapple with expensive tickets and unclear rules in campus parking struggle

By Isaiah Shiau

The University of Maryland Department of Transportation Services office on Regents Drive. (Image via DOTS website)

COLLEGE PARK—A typical off-campus outing for Grace Chan, a senior biology and economics student, begins by walking from her dorm at Wicomico Hall to the UMD Memorial Chapel, where she takes a bus to the College Park Metro station to her parked car. 

Although some people might think it’s easier to park their car on campus, the $901 overnight parking pass is too much for Chan. Parking spots in the Mowatt Lane Parking Garage –  a three-minute walk to Wicomico Hall – seem to fill up instantaneously since the first three floors are closed off for students.

“First, parking passes run out really fast, which they did this semester for me,” said Chan, who has had her car on campus for the last three years. “And then finding parking in Mowatt is really complicated, because you have to search for parking and it fills up really fast.”

Anita Mariana, a sophomore biology major, shared her own grievances with UMD’s Department of Transportation Services (DOTS). 

“I’ve gotten two parking tickets here too. I don’t really like the regulations because everything’s really confusing with all the signs and where you can park,” said Mariana, who lives at University View. “I can’t tell when and where I can park.”

Mariana said she once parked in lot LL1 outside of Annapolis Hall, unaware it was a 24-hour restricted parking lot.

Ryan Han, a junior public health sciences major, has never considered using a UMD lot. He said he felt the location of UMD’s parking lots aren’t always convenient based on which apartment you live in.

“I think it’s cheaper than the majority of private apartments that you would find,” Han said when referring to the parking lots run by DOTS.

Between 2019 and 2021, there was a 58.2% decrease in parking citations being issued by DOTS, decreasing from 57,227 citations to 23,917. Prior to this decrease, parking citation distribution had been consistent, with there being only a 9.4% increase in ticket distribution between 2018 and 2019.

But after the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a 120.7% increase in parking citations from 23,917 to 52,777 in 2023.

“I think people just don’t want to bring their cars down here because of how regulated it all is,” Mariana said. “It’s already pretty busy, though, with cars and construction on Route 1, so I guess that also kind of affects whether people want to bring their cars.”

Ben Lee, a junior finance and information systems major, shared insight from his experience as a student judiciary for DOTS parking appeals.

Lee explained the $85 parking citation for inconvenience is quite common among people who aren’t used to parking on UMD’s campus. But he admitted the inflexibility of the parking rules enforced by DOTS.

“It’s either you parked there or you didn’t, and it doesn’t matter if a student didn’t know or not. You’re expected to know and read the signs.Most of it is on the student and there’s not a lot of forgiveness for it,” Lee said.