The minimum $60 per year that ASU East students are paying for parking this year is going toward improving and maintaining parking lots and related infrastructure, as well as parking operations.
The Arizona Board of Regents required all universities to institute pay-for-parking at the beginning of 2003, but ASU East didn't start charging students until this semester so it could set up a parking and transit operation.
Terry Isaacson, the director of administrative services at ASU East, said what a difficult and expensive process it is to start up and maintain. "[The campus had] more than 50 surface parking lots, many in need of serious repair, none of them with the appropriate signage, but most of them usable with some level of repair."
The new signage and some resealing and resurfacing of selected parking lots, as well as the striping and lettering of parking spaces has already been completed. However, money will not be spent on parking lots that will eventually host buildings.
Skye Leonard, the administrative associate for Administrative Services, has accepted the temporary assignment of ASU East Parking and Transit manager as of March, but that assignment, paid for by parking revenue, will be filled by a permanent, full-time employee as soon as possible, Isaacson said.
Isaacson said the transition will not happen quickly, though, and revenues are not being collected from the visitor meters because they have not been installed and the parking enforcement is still in a grace period.
"All of the tickets have been warnings to date," he said.
However, a few people were ticketed for parking illegally in loading zones, handicapped parking or fire lanes.
One student noticed the repaved roads and the updated look East is developing. "It looks less like an Air Force base now," said exercise and wellness doctoral candidate Greg Trone. Most roads had potholes, and striping was virtually nonexistent or faded last year.
Sean Custer, a golf facilities management senior, admitted he hadn't bought a parking decal yet and said, "It's a joke that they are charging, but I guess they have to now because there are so many people.
"All the [new] fees that are being charged are examples of what we did not like about Main campus. It was what attracted us to ASUE," Trone said.
Reach the reporter at camardella@asu.edu.
