Many students wonder why they have to pay for parking, according to Parking Manager Richard Kirkendall.\u00a0 He said student parking fees do not cover the costs associated with maintaining and operating parking at Sinclair Community College, a fact confirmed by Business Services Director Jeff Miller.<\/p>\n
\u201cSinclair\u2019s been very concerned with containing parking expenses for students,\u201d Miller said.\u00a0 \u201cThe expense that students pay does not offset the costs of parking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller said the annual budget for parking fluctuates between $100,000 and $700,000 based on the scheduled maintenance intended for that year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do project costs, but costs are very volatile based on construction costs, which are typically driven by construction material expenses,\u201d Miller said.\u00a0 \u201cTherefore it is necessary to reassess our projections on an annual basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller said parking costs include maintaining the garage and restriping lots as well as providing security, police and shuttle services.\u00a0 He said the discount students receive when purchasing an RTA bus pass in the bookstore is also a parking cost.<\/p>\n
The department is always looking at ways to improve parking efficiency, Miller said.\u00a0 In December students were invited to be a part of a pilot program that would offer them free parking for the month of January.\u00a0 Miller said that hundreds of students responded with interest in the program, but only 24 came to the office to receive passes.<\/p>\n
In addition to the pilot program, Sinclair hosts a parking survey every year, according to Miller.<\/p>\n
\u201cSinclair is always interested in gathering information related to parking services through the annual survey,\u201d Miller said.\u00a0 \u201cI would encourage students to keep an eye out for the e-mail survey in March.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller said there has been both positive and negative feedback about parking over the last five years.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeedback that we\u2019ve received has been positive in that we\u2019ve provided discounted bus pass sales, shuttle bus services as well as an active presence through the Sinclair Police Department to manage traffic flow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Most negative feedback has been related to parking convenience, Miller said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t turn people away because there\u2019s no parking space,\u201d Miller said.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s just not the ideal space that they would like to have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Miller and Kirkendall said they are open to receiving feedback about Sinclair\u2019s parking situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s something that can be fixed, we\u2019ll fix it.\u00a0 If it\u2019s beyond our control, we pass it on (to business services),\u201d Kirkendall said.<\/p>\n
Questions, concerns, ideas and feedback can be emailed to parking@sinclair.edu. \u00a0Parking payment information can be found here<\/a>, and interactive maps can be downloaded from Sinclair’s parking department here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Many students wonder why they have to pay for parking, according to Parking Manager Richard Kirkendall.\u00a0 He said student parking fees do not cover the costs associated with maintaining and operating parking at Sinclair Community College, a fact confirmed by Business Services Director Jeff Miller. \u201cSinclair\u2019s been very concerned with containing parking expenses for students,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[1976,12,597],"class_list":["post-3940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-meagan-ewton","tag-parking","tag-parking-problems"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-11y","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3940"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4002,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940\/revisions\/4002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}