Parking & Transportation Services — Attraction in Irvine

Juan Rodriguez has verbally abused me over email & is incredibly unprofessional toward students. He views himself "superior", claiming that poor signage across parking areas on/near campus lots are enforceable, and reasons that we are "obligated" to know the parking rules.

Rodriguez has a history of poor customer service as the "Compliance Unit Manager", a role he is clearly not fit for. His history of harassment toward other students has not gone unnoticed, and UCI PD's incessant lack of care toward his behavior proves that Rodriguez is simply a symptom of a broader disease. Dina Ochoa, the “Assistant Director”, oversees all of Rodriguez’s behavior. Additionally, UC Irvine purposefully fails to provide adequate parking signage, harasses students, and predates over a "public" community in hopes of adding to their $1.5 million in parking ticket revenue every year. Want proof of the number? Go to the transportation website under the section labeled “Where Your Money Goes”. Scroll down, and you’ll see the ridiculous amount UCI makes from tickets and permits EVERY YEAR.

Juan Rodriguez pocketed $105k in 2022. Dina Ochoa pocketed $163k in 2022. These can be verified using Transparent California’s website.

Thieves. They steal from us. They steal from this school. They steal from the COUNTLESS number of UCI Transportation student workers who are overworked and underpaid. What kind of work do you really think these crooks do to deserve that money?

UCI Transportation and Distribution Services is a for-profit organization with zero intention to help students. They work closely with UCI PD to ensure they have legal grounds among all parking tickets, and that students cannot discuss any issue related to parking tickets without seeking an attorney & paying for the fees. Instead of providing safer transportation opportunities for students, UCI continues to strengthen their car-based school, causing several students to get hit each quarter by motor vehicles. They claim they provide “safer” and “environmentally-friendly” bus solutions, but they’ve reduced the number of lines and drivers every single quarter since 2022. Hiring only students as bus drivers ensures that students cannot form a union, allowing UCI to undercut student pay. I can only pray for those who are going to live in Plaza I this upcoming school year; you'll be sharing a parking lot with over 1,000 other students.

To put it into perspective, the enforcement officers rack in ~$5.4k every day from tickets. Which lots do you think they're getting the majority of their money from? These are parking citations, not traffic infractions. No student or employee should risk their car getting impounded for wanting to go to school or work, or even just live at their apartment. $75 per ticket, and we’re not including the ridiculous price jumps (up to $200) after a few weeks of not paying. Then, straight to the DMV it goes; expect a boot on your car too! And what if you forgot to pay? Well too bad. Expect Juan Rodriguez to tell you to “follow the rules”.

These people are not on the same playing field as us. They are in a different economic class. They don’t understand what a “measly” $75 does. They don’t know the reality of losing your car. Or of paying $40k a year to attend a “public” school. UCI Transportation’s top-brass is soulless.

!! 2024 UPDATE: As of 2022-2023, enforcement makes up 10% of all transportation revenue, with a ridiculous $1,898,597. In the span of a year, UCI parking has nearly increased their enforcement revenue by $300k. It is thoroughly evident that this Transportation “Service” is a for-profit scheme. No PUBLIC service BOOTS and IMPOUNDS vehicles without a...

Juan Rodriguez has verbally abused me over email & is incredibly unprofessional toward students. He views himself "superior", claiming that poor signage across parking areas on/near campus lots are enforceable, and reasons that we are "obligated" to know the parking rules.

Rodriguez has a history of poor customer service as the "Compliance Unit Manager", a role he is clearly not fit for. His history of harassment toward other students has not gone unnoticed, and UCI PD's incessant lack of care toward his behavior proves that Rodriguez is simply a symptom of a broader disease. Dina Ochoa, the “Assistant Director”, oversees all of Rodriguez’s behavior. Additionally, UC Irvine purposefully fails to provide adequate parking signage, harasses students, and predates over a "public" community in hopes of adding to their $1.5 million in parking ticket revenue every year. Want proof of the number? Go to the transportation website under the section labeled “Where Your Money Goes”. Scroll down, and you’ll see the ridiculous amount UCI makes from tickets and permits EVERY YEAR.

Juan Rodriguez pocketed $105k in 2022. Dina Ochoa pocketed $163k in 2022. These can be verified using Transparent California’s website.

Thieves. They steal from us. They steal from this school. They steal from the COUNTLESS number of UCI Transportation student workers who are overworked and underpaid. What kind of work do you really think these crooks do to deserve that money?

UCI Transportation and Distribution Services is a for-profit organization with zero intention to help students. They work closely with UCI PD to ensure they have legal grounds among all parking tickets, and that students cannot discuss any issue related to parking tickets without seeking an attorney & paying for the fees. Instead of providing safer transportation opportunities for students, UCI continues to strengthen their car-based school, causing several students to get hit each quarter by motor vehicles. They claim they provide “safer” and “environmentally-friendly” bus solutions, but they’ve reduced the number of lines and drivers every single quarter since 2022. Hiring only students as bus drivers ensures that students cannot form a union, allowing UCI to undercut student pay. I can only pray for those who are going to live in Plaza I this upcoming school year; you'll be sharing a parking lot with over 1,000 other students.

To put it into perspective, the enforcement officers rack in ~$5.4k every day from tickets. Which lots do you think they're getting the majority of their money from? These are parking citations, not traffic infractions. No student or employee should risk their car getting impounded for wanting to go to school or work, or even just live at their apartment. $75 per ticket, and we’re not including the ridiculous price jumps (up to $200) after a few weeks of not paying. Then, straight to the DMV it goes; expect a boot on your car too! And what if you forgot to pay? Well too bad. Expect Juan Rodriguez to tell you to “follow the rules”.

These people are not on the same playing field as us. They are in a different economic class. They don’t understand what a “measly” $75 does. They don’t know the reality of losing your car. Or of paying $40k a year to attend a “public” school. UCI Transportation’s top-brass is soulless.

!! 2024 UPDATE: As of 2022-2023, enforcement makes up 10% of all transportation revenue, with a ridiculous $1,898,597. In the span of a year, UCI parking has nearly increased their enforcement revenue by $300k. It is thoroughly evident that this Transportation “Service” is a for-profit scheme. No PUBLIC service BOOTS and IMPOUNDS vehicles without a...

On behalf of every student, visiting family member, and faculty member that UCI Parking has exploited for money, screw UCI Parking and the goons they employ to exploit college students for money. I have gone in person several times to complain about these tickets (I have since given up) and find that the director, amy, and other staff members, are as callous and cavalier about their practices as can be.

Did you know that you can receive a $70 ticket simply for having been penalized previously? Did you know that you can receive a ticket for the crime of parking for 30 min. in guest spots in front of the Camino Del Sol Housing office? Did you know that you can be penalized $70 for parking halfway between the 1st and 2nd floors of the ARC with a current resident permit? And all of these things notwithstanding a valid resident permit, which at $300 a quarter, is not cheap.

UCI Parking is a nasty stain upon the UCI brand, and deserves restructuring and reformation. The director and the staff, so smug about these policies, deserve to be removed and replaced with employees with a sense of ethics and scruples. UCI parking, like the science departments or graduate programs, represents the UCI brand to the general public. If I had known just how bad this parking system was as a prospective student (having now paid over $1000 in fines and permits), I would have chosen a better university. I suspect many prospective students would reconsider their acceptance to UCI if they knew just how gross and exploitative UCI parking and the ACC housing communities can be.

Let’s do the math: $5700+ in tuition/quarter,$1100/month for a private room in ACC housing, $300+ a quarter for resident parking permits, and $70 citations that—by design—are all too easy to get and very difficult to appeal, sum up to an inflated cost of living that very few students consider reasonable. This is an exploitative system by design, engineered to suck up every last penny of your college savings. Those who are penalized the worst are not the international students, who live in ostentatious wealth in the ACC housing communities, but the commuter students and native californians who are forced to suffer overpriced permits, overpriced housing, and an an exploitative parking system, so that we may get a degree from UCI.

If you think that you are saving money by choosing UCI over more prestigious university like Stanford or UCLA, consider the above figures as representative of what it truly costs to get a degree from this university. Is this degree from UCI a good value for...