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NEWS
| October 31, 2003
Parking
Police: Temporary tags abused
Parking officials say the $1 passes
will only be sold to UTA visitors.
By Rajal
Vashisht
The Shorthorn staff
Temporary parking hangtags will not be available to students beginning
Saturday due to rampant misuse, officials say.
The temporary tags, which cost $1, allow students full parking privileges
across campus for five days and are intended for use in emergency
situations.
“Some students figured out it would be cheaper for them to
buy the temporary hangtags one week at a time rather than buy the
parking pass,” Police Assistant Chief James Ferguson said.
“Basically, people were trying to get around our system.”
A standard parking permit costs $72 for the 16-week fall semester.
Students who obtained temporary passes stood to save up to $56.
“The Parking Office didn’t recognize that, with temporary
fees so low, students could take advantage,” Ferguson said.
“When they did their monthly reports, they saw a big increase
in the number sold.”
Parking officials said they usually sell around 800 temporary passes
each month, with the majority going to visitors and guests on campus.
In August, the Parking Office sold more than 2,000 temporary passes.
When parking officials reviewed their records, Ferguson said, they
noticed a few trends.
“The same people were coming back over and over again,”
he said. “And a lot of these students were people who had
never purchased a regular decal.”
Even though abuse of the parking loophole was widespread, some students
were sympathetic to those trying to save money.
“Parking passes are pretty expensive anyway,” electrical
engineering freshman Nathan Hood said. “I don’t blame
them.”
Officials said temporary permits will be much more restricted.
“We aren’t getting rid of them completely,” Ferguson
said. “We will still be accommodating visitors on campus with
the tags.”
Other students, such as aerospace engineering senior Benjamin Lottie,
said the restrictions won’t be much of an issue.
“I didn’t even know they existed,” Lottie said.
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| James
Ferguson, police assistant chief, says the
same students were buying the $1 hangtags
repeatedly.
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