“A majority” of the Woodroffe campus’ 21 parking machines malfunctioned in January, said Roch Lafond – the manager of Parking, Lockers, Coin-Ops and Card Services.
About 16 of the parking machines on campus shut down due to the cold weather over the holiday break.
The malfunction caused one of the parking metres in lot 12 to display the incorrect time – it was an hour late.
The issue was brought to the attention of parking services by the Times and has since been fixed. The metre now displays the correct time.
Another metre in lot 11 is out of order, but the parts required to repair it have been ordered.
“That’s why we have two machines in most lots,” Lafond said. The issue was reported to the Times on Jan. 29, and was solved by Feb. 2.
“A majority of machines on campus went down in January,” said Lafond.
This could have caused the wrong time to be displayed. Most parking metres on campus are solar powered, but the machines in lot 12 are not.
“On a weekly basis, a technician goes out to the machines to make sure they are working properly and have paper in them,” Lafond said.
“Those machines are like tanks and we don’t usually have a problem with them,” Lafond said. He is confident that the metre displaying the wrong time was not due to an oversight by staff.
“The officer that patrols the lot has been at the college since ‘91 so he would have questioned that,” he said.