Join the MSU student who is taking a stand against East Lansing parking

Parking in East Lansing sucks, but nothing can compare to the parking situation on campus. Personally, I have received four parking tickets just this past semester, and that isn’t counting the exuberant amount of money I have paid for parking fees  since September. Claire Fossum, a sophomore who was born and raised in East Lansing is like many MSU students who are fed up with the parking situation on campus and in the surrounding city. Instead of making another angry tweet or post, Claire decided to create a petition for students and residents of East Lansing to sign in an attempt to lower the parking rates.

In the description of the petition, Claire describes the struggle of even parking at her childhood home in East Lansing. She says that “…if you are even two inches over the sidewalk, then you receive a $35 ticket.” Which is a ticket she and many of her family members have received. She goes on to talk about some facts about the PACE parking program and the revenue they create. “In 2013, PACE wrote 40,917 parking violations, which is about FOUR citations for every FIVE MSU STUDENTS.” She wrote.

“During the 2014-2015 school year, the MSU Police Department raked in 1.6 MILLION from fines brought on by parking violations. It is appalling to me that students who need to drive to class, considering how large our campus is, could run them over $20 a week in paying for ramps, and even more if they risk not paying and get a ticket.” said Fossum.

After talking with Claire about why she created the petition, the 20 year-old said, “My goal with the parking petition is to rally MSU students(and EL residents) together to recognize and subsequently lower the current rates for parking on campus and downtown, and decrease the ticketing habits of PACE and the MSU parking enforcers.”

When I asked her about what she thinks the parking rates should be, she said “I think that the rates for the downtown lots should at least go down to what they were before July; 70 cents per half hour in surface lots and parking garages. Ideally, it would be 50 cents. Also, Spartan Stadium should potentially be free considering the library is a necessity for students, and that lot is the closest to it. Spartan Stadium could raise rates a little more for football games and other event parking to make up the difference. It should also add a credit card reader. Campus garages need to be lowered per hour, and surface lots honestly should be free since they are so far away anyways and never fill up. If these options aren’t as feasible as one could hope, I’d at least like to see ticketing frequency decrease, student surface lots with free access, and have free parking during finals week around campus.”

Since its creation on Monday, the petition already has close to 1,000 online signatures out of the 5,000 signature goal. When speaking to Claire about the overall point of the petition she said,  “I’m from EL and love MSU literally more than anything and am so proud to go here after my parents both did and grandparents coached golf here. I just have this issue with the parking dudes.”