By Cindy Hartley
cdh27@email.byu.edu
While Provo City has its share of parking problems, BYU has its own parking challenges. Officials say the main problem is that students want closer parking to campus than is now available. But Traffic Office supervisor Treena Bolingbroke said BYU's parking lots are much closer to campus than lots at other universities.
And, Bolingbroke said, every year there are 1,000 parking stalls that are empty. BYU has 16,000 parking stalls, and approximately 34,000 students and 6,000 faculty and staff members. Parking is crowded, Bolingbroke said, but down by the stadium, stalls are empty all the time.
'Every year, more students have cars,' Bolingbroke said. 'Ten years ago there were half as many cars on campus as there are now.'
Because students want to park close, the traffic office frequently issues tickets for illegally-parked cars. Bolingbroke said it's amazing to see what people will say to get themselves out of parking tickets. 'They stretch their stories to seem like their actions were justified,' Bolingbroke said.
The parking office has a wonderful appeals person, Bolingbroke said. 'She is very fair. Some students are allowed to do community service to work off their tickets if they can't afford to pay.'
Bolingbroke said visitors can also get tickets on campus, and those tickets are enforced even if the drivers don't attend BYU. She said a visitor can have one appeal per year on a parking ticket. But the traffic office will track the license plates of mis-parked cars, and tickets will be issued to whomever the car is registered to, student or not.
Bolingbroke said there are four officers who work four-hour shifts each day to enforce BYU parking regulations, plus two officers stationed at the visitors booths, so parking at BYU is constantly monitored during restricted parking hours.