Students who have left their cars in Parking Lot 80 for a few weeks might find tickets on their cars this week.

Resident Student Lot 80 on the corner of Park Avenue and Bigler Road was rearranged during fall break, said Jean Harris, manager of the University Parking Office. The lot now has 193 fewer spaces for student cars.

Wooden barriers were added to give the adjacent Faculty/Staff Lot Orange-A on Bigler and Pollock Roads the new 193 spaces.

"The faculty staff section needed to be expanded because of all the faculty parking we're losing to construction," Harris said. She cited the new buildings in West Campus as a main source of the lack of parking for faculty and staff. Penn State Police Services posted yellow warnings on student cars' windshields in the affected area, said Officer Ellen Aschenbrenner of Penn State police.

The warning said, "This section of Student Lot 80 has been reconfigured as part of faculty/staff lot Orange-A. No student parking is allowed in this lot between 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. More residential student parking is still available in Lot 83N, just beyond the flower gardens. Please move your vehicle from this lot to avoid future ticketing." Resident Student Lot 83N, north of Park Avenue on Bigler Road, has about 250 empty spaces, Harris said, which is enough to absorb the relocated student cars.

But the longer walk from Lot 83N to the main part of campus can make the new parking configuration a pain for students.

"I still try to park in Lot 80, but sometimes I have to park in no-man's land," Michael Long (senior-elementary education) said referring to Lot 83N. He added Lot 80 is usually quite full.

The displacement from Lot 80 to Lot 83N can be a nuisance. "It is a good lot of walking," Long said. He was also concerned over security and safety issues, especially for people making the trek up to Lot 83N at night.

Up until this week, most of the notes on student cars' windshields have simply been warnings. But now, tickets will be issued for any car not having a faculty/staff-parking permit. As of yesterday, there were still a few dozen students' cars parked in the former student parking section. Many of them still had the police-issued warnings on their windshields, apparently untouched.

The ticket fine varies. "It depends if they have permit or not," Aschenbrenner said. If students have a properly issued green parking permit but park in the wrong section, as is the case with the students' cars in the recently reconfigured Lot 80, the ticket will cost $11, she said. For cars without a permit, the ticket could cost up to $50.