Under the command of a new Transportation and Parking Services director, department workers are catching parking violators now more than ever.
The number of parking citations has risen lately with UCSD’s new transportation director promising to revamp campus parking policies.
When T&PS Director Brian D’Autremont came to UCSD from UCLA in November, he said he saw many holes in the parking system, including a high tolerance for parking violations. That led to several problems, including repeated instances of patients at Hillcrest Medical Center not being able to park because commuters were illegally taking their spots, D’Autremont said.
“People were just not issuing tickets,” he said.
Although he offered no exact numbers, D’Autremont said the number of total citations by the department has increased since February. The department’s concentration on areas such as Hillcrest inflated the figures, but were needed to ensure that legally paying customers had spaces, he said.
“I know the officers are being aggressive in this pursuit, and I think it is warranted,” D’Autremont stated in an e-mail. “The levels of tickets have increased, and so have empty spaces, especially on meters.”
A former T&PS employee, who worked at the department for several decades, said that an incentive-based pay system was the main cause for the increase in the number of tickets.
The source, who requested to remain anonymous because of possible repercussions, said that the department’s program rewards employees with higher citation rates through prizes such as iPods. The source said he feared that officers now face incentive to issue “bogus tickets.”
“It opens the system up for corruption to do whatever it takes to ticket, ticket, ticket at the expense of the public,” the source said.
However, the Service and Teamwork Award Recognition program has been used for several years and implemented across numerous departments, D’Autremont stated.
According to several campus department Web sites, including T&PS, reward-based systems are used to recognize employees that excel in certain areas. In his department, D’Autremont said he nominates employees for prizes based on several factors, including low appeal rates and efficiency. That nomination goes into a pool with those of other employees, where a random drawing decides which employee receives a prize.
While D’Autremont said he “encouraged” citations to be written in certain areas, as long as the violations were apparant, he attributed the accusations to a disgruntled former employee upset with the department’s new leadership.
The new director said he is aiming to add services and features to campus parking in order to find a balance between the lack of student spots and the citations for illegal parking.
“The primary complaint I hear is that ‘there were no legitimate places for me to park,’” D’Autremont stated. “When we review the area and find many illegal parkers, I must conclude the complaint is valid.”
