Every day when walking through the University parking lots, it’s easy to spot the cars that have extended their stay by the orange tickets flapping under windshield wipers. These tickets add up to over 40,000 and 45,000 tickets a year, a main revenue of which is from the meters on campus. According to the Parking and Traffic Office, this adds up to $670,000 in tickets for the 2008-2009 academic year.’ Stacie Enriquez, an administrative officer in the Public Safety Department said the main reason for the frequent meter tickets is because they ticket the spaces often. ‘The meters can be ticketed once an hour, every hour, from 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.,’ she said. ‘We ticket them often because the spaces are intended for short-term parking.’ The money from parking tickets helps to support the Parking and Traffic Office at the University, which provides the shuttles for students on campus – which cost $478,000 for the academic year of 2008-2009. The department is an auxiliary department, Enriquez said, meaning it pays for itself. Everything in the department, including the materials they need, parking lot repair, shuttle services and products to keep the department running is paid for by the revenue they make for themselves. Freshman Nathan Saygers, who has received parking tickets on campus, said he wasn’t aware of the parking regulations on campus. ‘I got two tickets within the span of a few days,’ he said. ‘Both were for pulling through a diagonal space.’ Students can park in designated areas on campus depending on the different types of passes they hold. The areas are marked on campus maps and available at the Parking and Traffic Office. The lots are color coded, and allow students with a blue pass (on campus) to park in the blue areas (lots 6 and 12), students with a red pass (off campus) to park in the red areas (any commuter lots) and those with a green pass (faculty and staff) to park in the green areas on campus. Sophomore Stephanie Smith has never had any problems with campus parking, but said she wished the money was used more wisely. ‘I’ve personally never received a ticket, but I wish that the money would go more into maintaining the parking lots,’ she said. Enriquez said the parking situation is something everyone likes to complain about, but in the end, it brings people together. ‘It’s another one of those ‘p’ words, like politics,’ she said. ‘It evokes a lot of passion, and brings people together for the same cause in the end.’