LakeheadU Increases Parking Ticket Cost

I am truly disgusted with myself. For the past four years I have perfected the art of avoiding the Lakehead Parking Authority; I know their schedule, I buy the hour passes if I’m around during ticketing times. I even had spies watch out for the ticket guy when I was on the way to school or move my car to another area of the lot were they had already passed over. I did the math. I could get fifteen tickets in a year and it would’ve been cheaper than buying the parking pass. I took pride in my frugality and resourcefulness, and so I never bought the parking pass. Until this year.

Right there in the parking lot I pulled out my calculator. Even if I paid within the discount-rate time frame, I could only get seven tickets the entire year if I still wanted to skip the pass and save money. This would be an unlikely occurrence. My heart broke. I wrestled it for a the weekend, but the Lakehead bigwigs forced my hand. And so I swallowed my pride, I spent the two eighty.

The piece of orange plastic mocks me every time I get in the car. It tells me I have no backbone. It’s right. But at least now I don’t have to look over my shoulder for the ticket person any more and can rest, knowing I made the safe economic decision.

On the afternoon of Tuesday September 15th, I sauntered over to my 2019 Hyundai in the G lot and spotted the strip of white receipt paper on the windshield. I figured, eighteen bucks (twenty five if it took more than a few days to pay) and I’d be on my merry way, plus, I’d know when they ticket on Tuesdays. However, where the twenty five dollar figure usually was, had been replaced by a whopping thirty-five dollars, with twenty five is now the new discounted rate. There must be some kind of mistake! That’s seven lattes at The Study! That’s one and a half burgers from The Outpost! That’s a forty per cent increase in a single year, and one that had me sweating.