Purchasing a parking decal pays. Those who display their parking decals when using one of the four parking decks available to commuters on the Monroe Park Campus will not be penalized for leaving their cars in the decks after hours.
“If you’re in there and you have a hanging tag that says you’re a subscriber you won’t be ticketed,” said Gregory Rentz, VCU’s manager of parking and transportation. Students typically are not booted or towed from the decks, he said, but those without decals could be ticketed after hours.
Students without decals will be ticketed after hours only when cashiers leave and when the parking staff begins to check the facility. This means that those having no hanging decal after 11 p.m. or midnight most likely will be issued the standard ticket.
“The amount of ticket money is not a revenue source – it’s a deterrent,” said Paul Jez, associate vice president for business services and treasurer, because the idea is to work with students instead of against them.
Rentz said ticketing cars without decals after hours is a universitywide policy implemented by the parking and transportation office. Decal holders don’t receive tickets because they paid for parking in that particular deck, but others are ticketed because they have not paid for parking on campus. This policy ensures that decal holders will have a parking space in the appropriate facility.
The West Cary Street Deck – not designed for overnight parking – remains open after hours to decal holders only.
“In that particular deck (West Cary Street Deck), it does have a cashier during the day,” Rentz said. “If you’re a subscriber and you park there and the gates lower at night . . . you take your VCU ID and swipe it at the access door. It lets you into the deck.”
Regardless of the policy, students with and without decals said they were unable to enter the West Cary Street Deck even with their ID cards.
Lindsay Alloway, a decal holder, said her card did not work at the West Cary Street Deck one night when she was leaving campus at 11 p.m. Alloway, a commuter student, said she was lucky someone could let her in.
Rentz said the parking and transportation office has received no complaints regarding access cards, but he pointed out that the established policy protects all students who park in the Cary Street deck.
No current plans exist to revise this policy, but parking and transportation as well as business services officials said they value student feedback.
“The one thing we never turn our backs on is input . . . We’re here to listen,” Jez said.