New parking rules at Mount Royal University (MRU) frustrate some students who say that their once-straightforward commutes have turned into a complicated ordeal.
This fall MRU’s Parking and Transportation Services (PTS) introduced new changes to enforcement aiming to improve parking on campus. The new rules include ticketing those who back into or pull through stalls and towing vehicles to a new on-campus lot when there are more than two unpaid tickets in a 30-day payment period.
A new vehicle-mounted mobile licence plate recognition technology has also been set up to check if people have paid for parking.
Driving instructor Wenchen Li questions the policy requiring drivers not to back into or pull through stalls.
“[It’s] inflexible, I don’t know why [students] have to be forced to park head-in… That’s not reasonable,” Li said.
Defensive driving experts encourage people to back into stalls when pulling out. This reduces the risk of hitting other cars or people.
Students also have concerns about these new rules. Memo Gomez, a student at MRU, says the new vehicle-mounted mobile licence plate recognition technology seemed excessive and fails to address the core issue of parking availability.
“I’ve been hearing a lot more complaints about the whole system. I’ve had people that I invite over to campus that they pull through the parking lot and then they get ticketed for that,” said Gomez. “It just makes it inconvenient.”
Gomez adds that the new parking rules have affected his decision to park on campus.
“I started buying the parking pass for the church across [from MRU Recreation]… It’s made me avoid parking on campus as much as possible.”
MRU PTS is aware of concerns regarding parking on campus and defends the changes to its policy and stated, “We have increased parking enforcement practices to alleviate congestion on campus, add to parking space availability and meet the needs of those who pay for parking.”
The university adds that the changes will help “recoup much-needed missing revenues,” helping “support important university programming initiatives as well as infrastructure repairs.”