Finding a place to put a car during school can be a trying experience. Either the lots are full, it is just too expensive or the permit machines are not working. No matter how prepared for school, parking can turn lighthearted excitement to absolute frustration.

Luckily there are alternatives to circling the school looking for parking on a daily basis. Alternative transportation does exist. There are even alternatives to driving alone and filling the lot with cars for each individual.

Public transportation brings people to school in hoards. Motorcycles are quick in traffic and can be parked anywhere with a couple of feet of asphalt available. The SF State Department of Parking and Traffic even matches up people with similar needs to carpool.

Limited parking affects everybody who drives to school. Sometimes people need to be creative about getting there car in a spot and getting off to class.

"I can’t afford to park here, so I parked in a residential area and walked about a mile," environmental science junior, Deborah Meckler, 54, said.

Some people choose to drop the car off wherever an open spot exists and deal with any ramifications later.

"I don’t even know if I’m allowed to park where I am parked today. It looked like it might be a staff lot," transfer and cinema student Nick Wyner, 22, said while on his way to class.

Some students wish to bypass the car thing completely.

After Vykki Gamble, 23, rolled her blue Kawasaki motorcycle into one of the eight motorcycle parking spots on Holloway, she said she rides her bike because it takes forever to find a parking spot for her car and she refuses to pay to park. "All of my friends will bike to school, walk or take MUNI. They won’t pay the five dollars," said the senior art major.

You may also find the fee for parking at SF State to be beyond your budget. The school does not offer semester or yearly parking passes at discount prices because there are not enough parking spaces for everybody.

According to the SF State Parking and Transportation Department there are currently 1,967 student, and 943 faculty and staff parking spaces available.

Current SF State student enrollment is 27,745 according to the Office of Enrollment Planning and Management. And according to the Office of Faculty Affairs and Professional Development there are 1700 faculty members.

SF State just don’t have enough parking for everyone. Street parking is an alternative for some, but there is only a limited amount of that too.

One-hour and two-hour parking spaces are available around campus and Parkmerced. However, if an extended stay on campus is required, beware: According to the San Francisco Department of Parking and Traffic there are always DPT officers handing out tickets around campus, and each ticket carries a fine of $35.

One DPT officer said he gives out between 50 and 100 tickets around campus per day. He said people give him all kinds of stories to get out of their tickets, but when the ticket has been printed there is no going back.

“I was only five minutes late,” first semester teacher Chiu-Yuan Chang tried to convince the DPT officer after finding a ticket on her car. “I was waiting for the cars to pass so I could cross the street when he gave me a ticket,” she said.
Chang said she applied for a faculty-parking permit, but they didn’t have enough.

Parking tickets can also be a real problem in the student and staff lots if an hourly permit has expired. The SF State Department of Parking and Traffic issues 10,000 tickets annually. Parking enforcement officers roam the garage looking for expired permits 24/7. Each citation they issue is $55.

Special debit cards that can be used in the parking permit machines can be purchased at the Bursar’s office in increments of $20 and $50. This can preserve time and sanity for students who don’t always have a supply of cash on hand. Plus, maybe mom and dad can be talked into buying it.

Alternatives do exist for students who wish to bypass the emotional or financial stress of parking on campus. MUNI will take a person just about anywhere in the city in less than an hour. And hey, you can get a couple hours of homework done in transit.

MUNI has the perk of convenience but with its new fare hike it is only cheaper than the garage depending on how long you would be parked there. MUNI is charging $1.25 a ride with transfers.

The monthly fast pass is $45. Buying a fast pass for four months will cost $180. Depending on how many days you plan to park in the garage, MUNI can cost more. If parking for two hours a day everyday for the semester the cost will be $160. But, if you buy a day permit at least three days a week the cost of parking for the semester is $240.

Another alternative to parking, which can be conducive to making friends, is what the parking and transportation department calls the Ride Match Program, a free service that has been available to SF State students and faculty since 1987.

“The ride match program is a database of people who are interested in carpooling. We send people lists of others in their area,” California State University Police Lt. Jerry Trobaugh said. There are about 125 people in the ride match database and depending on the area the carpool is usually two people or more, Trobaugh said.

With the ride match program students and staff fill out an application describing their commuting needs. The parking and traffic department matched people up with others based on their city, zip codes and individual schedules.