2008 Woodie Awards
Parking enforcement moves into the 21st century
Mark Dodson
Issue date: 6/2/05 Section: News
As many students are aware, parking at UWT is a challenge. However, for students returning to campus this fall, avoiding parking fines will become virtually impossible thanks to some new technology that will be employed by the city.
Currently, many students avoid paying the meter in one of two ways, either by parking far away from the campus and walking over, or by parking in a spot with a time limit and checking their car periodically for the tell-tale chalk-line placed there by one of the city's parking enforcement officers; a game of parking roulette.
Kurtis Kingsolver, a traffic engineer for the city of Tacoma, has been one of the leading forces behind the change and how the city keeps track of parking violations.
Currently the system works this way. The city has been sectioned off in a series of smaller parking zones. Each zone has its own time limit, depending on the local business in the area; zones near restaurants allow a longer time to park than areas where there is a confluence of retail outlets.
These time limits are enforced by having parking officers who travel around the zones on foot, marking the tires of cars with small chalk dashes and returning to the area after the prescribed time limit to ensure that the cars in question are not still there.
This system has been in place for several years, but has some problems.
First, Tacoma has grown over time, and so have the areas of the zones. Some zones, according to Kingsolver, are simply too big for one officer to walk in a single day.
The other issue is that of savvy parking. Many residents of Tacoma and students at UWT are well aware that in order to park close and avoid a ticket involves the practice of constantly checking your car for chalk marks and moving it to another spot in such a way that the chalk mark cannot be seen.
This risk comes with a potential penalty. The fine for being caught chain-parking, the term that the city uses to describe the practice, is typically higher than an average parking ticket.
Currently, many students avoid paying the meter in one of two ways, either by parking far away from the campus and walking over, or by parking in a spot with a time limit and checking their car periodically for the tell-tale chalk-line placed there by one of the city's parking enforcement officers; a game of parking roulette.
Kurtis Kingsolver, a traffic engineer for the city of Tacoma, has been one of the leading forces behind the change and how the city keeps track of parking violations.
Currently the system works this way. The city has been sectioned off in a series of smaller parking zones. Each zone has its own time limit, depending on the local business in the area; zones near restaurants allow a longer time to park than areas where there is a confluence of retail outlets.
These time limits are enforced by having parking officers who travel around the zones on foot, marking the tires of cars with small chalk dashes and returning to the area after the prescribed time limit to ensure that the cars in question are not still there.
This system has been in place for several years, but has some problems.
First, Tacoma has grown over time, and so have the areas of the zones. Some zones, according to Kingsolver, are simply too big for one officer to walk in a single day.
The other issue is that of savvy parking. Many residents of Tacoma and students at UWT are well aware that in order to park close and avoid a ticket involves the practice of constantly checking your car for chalk marks and moving it to another spot in such a way that the chalk mark cannot be seen.
This risk comes with a potential penalty. The fine for being caught chain-parking, the term that the city uses to describe the practice, is typically higher than an average parking ticket.