Parking violations focus on safety

Violations bring in $1.2 to $1.3 million every year.

By Rachel Allred

Published Oct. 2, 2009

Various organizations are taking measures to reduce parking violations on campus and around Columbia.

Jim Joy, MU Parking and Transportation services director, said among those groups are the MU Police Department, hospital security, parking and transportation services enforcers and various building coordinators.

MUPD Captain Brain Weimer said the police department focuses more on safety violations than meter violations.

Weimer said MUPD primarily focuses on fire lanes and blocking driveways or exits.

Joy said though the university has jurisdiction over parking garages and parking lots, it does not own all the parking spaces on campus.

"All meters on the street belong to the city of Columbia," Joy said. "We have single space meters in the lots and we have master machine type meters in some of the parking garages."

Parking lots are patrolled for expired meters and parking passes, but there is no set time or pattern as to when, Joy said. When a vehicle is found parked at an expired meter or without a pass, a ticket is issued to the driver.

Tickets range from $5 to $100, depending on the violation. All the money received from the tickets goes to parking and transportation services.

"We run the entire system, whether that's shoveling the snow, building the garages, we pay for every bit of that," Joy said. "That money comes from the users of the system. There's the users that have permits and there's users of the system that park at the meters. Then there's the people who park illegally, and they do get violations."

Joy said on average, more than 100,000 tickets are dispersed each year and $1.2 to $1.3 million is collected annually from those violations.

On city streets, members of the Columbia Public Works Department issue parking tickets. Columbia Police Department spokeswoman Jessie Haden said there aren't any officers specifically assigned to patrol for parking violations around the city, but they watch for illegally parked cars and respond to citizen complaints.

CPD officers often handle cars that hinder the flow of traffic or violate safety. This includes cars parked on the left side of the road or in front of fire hydrants, stop signs or driveways.

Haden also said CPD officers pay more attention to areas with high traffic congestion and few parking spaces.

"If there is a high concentration of people in residences who use street parking, we will monitor those areas," Haden said.

Ticket fines both on and off campus vary according to the violation.

"Parking in a disabled spot will get you a much heftier fine than parking at an expired meter," Haden said.