Iowa State’s parking often poses an issue among students, with the ISU Parking Division holding 1.1 stars out of five on Google Reviews. Many of the complaints come from the availability of lots, as well as ticket pricing. However, many of the workers in the parking division are following their duties.

Mark Miller, the parking director for the Iowa State Parking Division, pointed out that there are many things the ISU Parking Division does besides ticketing and fining.

“It changes a lot because we deal with a lot of different things,” Miller said. “Some days, we’re dealing with a lot of construction projects and parking. Some days, we’re dealing more with students. [At the] beginning of the semester, everybody’s buying permits, so that kind of takes that area. Overall, we do all the permitting on campus. We usually do around probably 15,000 permits.”

Miller also said no tuition goes to the parking division, which is self-supporting.

“Everything that we generate, we need to maintain our lots, to rebuild lots, crack fillings, seal coating, line painting or salaries; what we fund for CyRide, things like that,” Miller said. 

According to Miller, there are no plans to merge with Iowa State to make parking part of tuition, and he claims that if it were to happen, parking could get worse.

“I think what you would probably see is more complaints because if you provided free parking, everybody else may go, ‘Oh, I’m going to bring a car whether I really need it,'” Miller said. “Now we got more people because it’s free.”

Miller also listed the most common types of tickets.

“We have several,” Miller said. “There’s the metered parking, which is either an individual meter or a prepay lot. That’s a $20 fine. Student and staff lots, the yellow lots and the general staff are $30 tickets. Then there’s reserved, which are $50 tickets because people are paying $650, and they expect to be able to park in that when they show up. If the general staff lot is full, you just go to the next general staff lot.”

He also mentioned that he believes people ignore parking legalities until they are cited.

“I think you’re going to have people that, until they get a ticket, they don’t really pay attention if you drive around at the first ten days, two weeks before school starts and about two weeks after, we put signs all over campus, many frames with the color of the fine, like red [is] $50,” Miller said.

Despite acknowledging the ISU Parking Department as a separate entity, Sheri Nelson, the parking enforcement coordinator for the Ames Police Department, said that Ames parking officers still patrol around campus.

“When students are in session, a lot of our time is concentrated [on campus] because the reality with parking is that we cite what we observe for violations, so when students are back in session, there’s a lot more violations that might be occurring over there,” Nelson said. “So it does take a lot more time for us to drive through all those areas and enforce those, but we do check other areas of the town as well.”

Nelson expressed that the most expensive ticket is a handicap violation at $100, and the cheapest is expired meters, which start at $5, which is $15 less than the ISU Parking Department’s expired meter ticket. Nelson explained why there are differences in ticket prices between the two entities.

“Iowa State has the ability to more quickly update their fines for that,” Nelson said. “Everything that the city does, as far as the fine structure, ordinance or regulations, have to go through a council approval, so it’s such a process to go through and update a fine or regulation that it just doesn’t happen as quickly throughout the city. I can’t just say, ‘Hey, let’s go change this because this is a problem, and it should be adjusted.’ It has to come from a public complaint.”

Nelson also urged students to settle for parking further away if there is no legal parking nearby.

“There’s only so many legal spaces on a street, right?” Nelson said. “The reality is if you drive two streets over, you can probably find legal parking, but, what human nature is, we don’t want to walk from that far, so I’m going to take that chance and risk parking here.”

A similar message both parking managers had was their willingness to inform and educate those who may be unknowledgeable about tickets and fines. 

“If a freshman comes in and gets a ticket, and they go, ‘I don’t know where to park,’ we take the ticket back and then explain to them,” Miller said. “So we try to be accommodating.”

“We just always like people to know if you got any questions about parking, come to us, call us or email us,” Nelson said. “A lot of times, what we hear is, ‘Well, I asked ‘so and so,’ and they told me I could do this.’ Well, they may not know our rules and regulations; ‘well, my hall director said I could park here overnight,’ well the signs say you can’t park overnight.”

“Part of my goal is to work on that education piece,” Nelson said. “In the past, I’ve reached out to the Greek sororities and fraternities in the past going ‘Hey, beginning every school year, we paper those neighborhoods with warnings and little flyers going “Hey, here’s some stuff for you guys to know so that we don’t have to write tickets.”’ We want you to know what the rules are, and then it’s up to the student or the driver to make the right choice.”

More information about campus parking can be found here and information about city-wide parking can be found here.