Washington PA spring 2011 - NO parking??!!!

[TC3200]

i just received this in an email today, and i can't believe it! why was this problem not mentioned at the orientation i attended last february, or at any time thereafter?

i wish i could do a copy/paste, but i can't. here is what it says:

student parking is available in any of the employee parking areas on a very limited basis. because of the number of students who will be at the school of nursing, i highly suggest that all students consider car pooling. the ability to park on site can be revoked at any time and wil occur if hospital employees reporting for work are unable to find a parking space. patient care cannot be compromised!

for those of you who establish a car pool and wish to park on site, there are two methods to access the employee parking areas. the first is to purchase a parking token at a cost of $3.00 per day. tokens can be either purchased from the vending machines in the hospital or in the school of nursing at the variety shop (located just inside the main entrance of the school building.)

students also have the option of prepaying for parking per term. prepay costs are $69.15 for the nursing i (spring term); $80.70 for nursing ii and v (summer terms); and $121.05 for nursing iii (fall term), nursing iv (spring term) and nursing vi (fall term). checks must be made out to the washington hospital. the benefit of prepaid parking is the ability to reenter a parking area, if you choose to leave, without having to purchase another token. if you wish to prepay for parking, complete the form below and return it ... no later than december 17, 2010.

...

and she goes on to say farther down in the letter:

...also, the available on-street parking is very limited. many of the streets surrounding the hospital are posted as either no parking or permit parking only. violators have either received warnings, parking tickets, or been towed...

there are a number of large shopping areas in close proximity to the hospital. if you are unable to car pool from home, the extra vehicles can be parked in the shopping areas and one vehicle brought on site.

this memo is dated october 26, 2010, and it was issued by kathryn m. yecko, rn, msn. i plan to scan it and upload, as soon as i reboot and get the scanner operating again.

black bold test and underline are as-written in the memo.

i bolded + reddened the parts that disturbed me the most, to call attention to them. i am not an attorney, but as an independent adult, i have several concerns that might make this a deal-breaker for me:

1. i am not licensed and insured for transporting passengers. i am neither a taxi nor an illegal jitney. and neither are the rest of you, unless you happen to already operate your vehicle for hire as passenger transport. check with your insurance company and with your family's attorney. there is a tremendous liability issue here, if you are using your passenger vehicle routinely for transporting a carload of passengers. your insurance company needs to be made aware of this change, since your family policy doesn't really cover that usage. you will need to carry higher limits for any injury or property damage category. contact your insurance company before you start car pooling! additionally, as carpool driver and/ or the vehicle owner, you open yourself up to lawsuits galore should there be an accident! again, consult your attorney. consult your parents or the owner(s) of the vehicle, and make certain that you have permission, and that you are adequately insured!

i will be speaking with my agent and i will add any anything that i learn from that conversation later.

2. regarding parking at the shopping centers and using them gratis for non-business purposes: please contact the owner(s) and the business operators and ask whether they have agreed to allow rn students from the hospital to have free all-day parking on a regular basis, when they obviously are not shopping at those stores for that amount of time. i suspect they will not permit that, if they know it's going on, for liability reasons and for practical reasons. it costs money to maintain parking lots, and those owners must also pay Liability Insurance on them.

i, for one, do not want to have my car damaged at or towed from some shopping center, nor do i plan to comply with this request and leave my vehicle there. i presumed that my student parking would be by permit, on the washington hospital grounds, because that is where i am doing business. at no time until this oct. 26 memo did the washington hospital even mention that the parking situation for students would be catch-as-catch-can, much less that we are expected park off-site at remote locations, without any shuttle bus services provided. i certainly am not amused at the cavalier suggestion that i just leave my vehicle at some local shopping facility.

3. many community colleges and college campuses nowadays offer free parking to even part-time students. most major universities do not charge over $100 to $150 for an entire year of parking, and they actually have many parking spaces and parking facilities available. but washington hospital appears to be selling some very expensive "vaporware," i.e. charging exorbitant rates for nonexistent parking spaces. they don't actually say "you will not get a space," but they have certainly danced all around that statement and pointed at it, and then they leave us to draw our own conclusions.

4. personally, i am a commuter student. all students to washington are commuters. as such, i really have based my plans and budget estimates on driving myself where i need to go, when i need to go there, and parking my car on-site when i arrive. i do not live in the washington area (i live 2 hours away), i will be relocating solely to attend school there, i do not know anyone in the area, and i am not currently at waynesburg making friends because i am an adult and i have completed my college work. i am a transfer student. it will be impossible for me to carpool with anyone, because i do not know anyone else who is attending the school. i am having trouble finding suitable rental housing within commuting distance, and i may very well have to commute a longer distance or from some remote area, and that will not fit the routes that other students travel.

the actual memo shall be scanned an uploaded later this evening. i just wanted to get this out in the open, so that students and their parents and spouses and /or the car owners and the insured(s) can be hashing the details before the spring semester classes begin. please pass this along to any current and future students who may be unaware of the potential risks of the suggestions in the memo.

[TC3200]

direct link that won't cut off the right side of the page: http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/dd459/WashHosp/WashingtonParking.jpg

That is the parking policy. I still have several unanswered questions. Car pooling might be possible for those who are local and established and can leave their cars at home, but it certainly does not work for me, as an adult transfer student from out of the area.

Regarding leaving your vehicles on private property at any shopping center: That is private property, not public parking. The owners or managers of those parking lots can have your car towed or moved for any reason. It might be broken in into while it's parked there. It might be towed away, moved, damaged, or completely plowed in during snow removal. I am very shocked and appalled that a nursing school would issue a letter to students advising them them do, essentially, something unethical by using shopping centers as free parking lots.

I am also of the very strong opinion that when you pay for a parking permit, you get to use the parking facilities on site. I realize that hospital administration set the parking policies, but this really goes too far. The students should be given the same priority as the employees, customers, and visitors. If you don't have parking, then limit the size of the nursing class. OR be honest about the parking situation and state the policy on the web site.

[RomanGrace]

That does really stink, and I agree comepletely that this should have been brought up at orientation. If they are going to run a school there than they need to offer ample parking plain and simple. On the other hand what they are charging for pre-paid parking isn't bad compared to many other schools. I attend California University currently and just paid $440 for my spot for Fall 2010/Spring 2011. My parking lot is on campus so it was a more expensive spot. Some students are paying 200+ for an off campus lot and have to ride the shuttle. Please don't get me wrong, THEY dropped the ball on you by not explaining this until 2 months before the program started, but unfortunately the pay for parking deals are becoming common place at most schools. One of my proffessors told me that she paid over $800 for her parking space at Duquesne. I hope everything works out for you and good luck in your program!

[TC3200]

Thanks for the luck. I will need it, just for the sheer logistical challenge of it, not for the academics, at least not until 2nd year, lol.

I phoned the school, and asked how often they thought they might actually not have parking spaces. "We never have, yet." was their answer. That seems more realistic, considering that they just built a parking garage. Maybe that is an old policy. (I hope.)

This parking deal was particularly an critical issue for me, because I have thus far been unable to find suitable rental housing in the area. So, I'll be starting as a commuter from 2 hours away, in the worst part of winter, until I can come up with a place to stay. Owning nice furniture and pets and vehicles like any adult is the sticking point. There are lots of dinky 1-2 BR apartments in old hacked-up houses, but adequate sq ft, safe living space for a single woman, adequate parking space, and willing to accept pets just is not the norm for the rental property there.

[TC3200]

Update Mar. 29: There's no parking problem. The students usually park in the back garage that's by the nursing school. If you have a full size truck, you might be better off in the paved lot by the IT Building b/c it's roomy and there are no height restrictions and maneuverability issues like in the garages. Bit of a hike on a rainy day, hehe.

Students park for free at the far end of Leonard St., at some clinic that TWH runs, and walk. Long walk for sure. But that lot is big and underutilized.

[TC3200]

Update Jan. 2012: Back in Sept or Oct 2011, there was a big dust-up about students parking at the Leonard Ave. clinic and the ER parking lots. Security chased all students off those lots. The hospital briefly allowed us to purchase parking passes belatedly, although at the full rate for the term, even though we were a month or two into it. Some students found parking on the residential streets downhill from the hospital. The employee garage does tend to fill up. Get there early and there's no problem. I don't know how the carpooling thing went, if anyone did it.