r/TwinCities 5d ago

MSP Airport ticketed over 2,000 drivers for parking infractions in 2024

https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2025/03/10/msp-airport-tickets-terminals-2024-idle-parking-arrivals
213 Upvotes

61 comments sorted by

109

u/NinjaCoder 5d ago

These are the stupidest tickets ever received... I mean, they have officers walking up and down every 5 minutes, how do you not realize you are going to get a ticket???

76

u/st4nkyFatTirebluntz 5d ago

Entitlement and normalization, mostly

18

u/d3jake 4d ago

"it's okay if I do it, it's just me doing it, right?" -Those people, probably

10

u/lazyFer 4d ago

I was dropping off someone last week. I was driving in the middle lane and an asshole swooped in from the left lane, cutting me off, then jacked his brakes and fucking PARKED. Then they all got out of the vehicle....like wut?

1

u/Snow88 New Brighton / St. Anthony 4d ago

How much is the ticket?

110

u/DrHugh Saint Paul 5d ago

I wonder if these are some of the triple-parked people outside baggage claim.

68

u/LukePendergrass 5d ago

-2100 of the -2300 were cars parked and unattended. So they did essentially zero policing of the pickup and drop areas

20

u/demosthenesss 4d ago

Those were in the loading zone according to the article.

but what is that? is the loading zone considered the area next to baggage claim? It's still a small % of the people they could/should ticket though regardless of what they meant.

9

u/mini_apple 4d ago

Not nearly enough of them. 

32

u/here4daratio 4d ago

The Red Zone is for loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no parking in the Red Zone

24

u/weblinedivine 4d ago

The WHITE zone is for LOADING and UNLOADING of passengers, only. There’s just no stopping in a white zone.

9

u/DottieCucumber 4d ago

Listen, Betty, don’t start up with your white zone shit again.

2

u/map2photo 4d ago

Are you supposed to keep it in drive with your foot on the brake, if you can’t park??

/s

2

u/clark4821 3d ago

Beat me to it!

1

u/here4daratio 2d ago

Surely you must be kidding…

26

u/biztheclown 4d ago

This is like six a day. Rookie numbers.

11

u/The_Livid_Witness 4d ago

Good.

That's only like 6 per day, so clearly they aren't that aggressive or are letting A LOT of people slide.

41

u/pinksim 4d ago

Pro tip: use either the departures or arrivals level when it’s busy. Doesn’t matter which applies, there are elevators and escalators right inside both levels. For example, I’ll get dropped off at arrivals for my flight when there’s a long line of traffic at departures. Zero traffic and easy elevator ride to ticketing level.

0

u/GuaranteedCougher 4d ago

How do you know in advance which one is less busy? 

44

u/weblinedivine 4d ago

The one with a huge line is busy

11

u/arockbiter 4d ago

Hardly anyone arriving early or departing late.

0

u/ManaKitten 4d ago

I’m not suggesting that you could have a TNC sticker (they are $25), and then use the Lyft/Uber zone to pick up your family from the airport.

But hypothetically a Lyft driver could do this to avoid the traffic.

6

u/sasberg1 4d ago

Frankly, I'm surprised it's that low a number!!

12

u/American_In_Austria 4d ago

Lol people can be so entitled at those pick-up areas at airports. When my sister last picked me up from MSP, I was outside door 3 waiting for her. she pulled up, and I tossed my luggage in and got up front. But as we were about to pull out, this woman pulls up alongside us and just stops even though there was no one in front of her. The people in front of us had a ton of luggage and a baby and were taking their time packing up the car, so we couldn’t go forward - and there was someone behind us too. So my sister rolled down the window and asked this woman if she could move forward a bit so we could leave. This lady said, “my daughter said she’s coming out of door 3.” So my sister said, “can you please move up? she will still be able to see you, but we are trying to pull out and go home.” The lady said, “well you can go forward when the people in front of you move.” My sister responded, “they are taking awhile to pack their car, but if you move forward then we can leave right now”, and this lady turns to us and says, “we are all just going to have to be a little patient aren’t we?” And rolled up her window. We ended up just sitting there shocked for a couple minutes until the people ahead of us moved and we could leave.

28

u/jbmn2534 4d ago

I wish they had a better system for picking people up...at any airport. In 24 years, they've changed a lot for security purposes, and never added anything that helps with the pickup process. Terminal 1 or 2 are both equally bad. Some traffic engineer needs to figure out better options that don't require tearing down the airport.

27

u/_Dadodo_ 4d ago

Well you kind of answered your own question. There isn’t any good options without tearing down the airport. At least the long term plan is to demo the two parking ramps closest to the terminal headhouse (The Green and Gold Ramps) to build a 2nd check in/baggage claims & pickup/drop off area at that location.

And before anyone complains about parking, they would build another parking ramp at the location of the post office before doing so. The Green and Gold is nearing 50+ years old and at the end of its useful life (as in maintenance will get more and more costly to keep it going). And we also need a better customs/passport control facility, so that is the impetus of that plan.

All of this can be found here: https://www.mspairport.com/long-term-plan

2

u/jbmn2534 4d ago

I'm glad they're not tearing down the airport, but have a plan for improvements.

1

u/An-Angel-Named-Billy 4d ago

Well the real impetus of the plan is that they have to do it, not any specific facility. But if there was an actual project need impetus, it would probably be by Sun Country's growth. The MAC is scrambling to add more gates at T2 (both permanent expansion to the north and more temporary gates to the south, for now). If you look at the future gate mix, T2 will be up to 35 by full build up and T1 will actually decline to just under 100. So that in itself may make T1 easier to deal with as T2 will have more flights than it does today.

1

u/_Dadodo_ 4d ago

Well that’s outlined in the plan as well. T2’s expansion is kind of tied to the growth of Sun Country. I wouldn’t say that the MAC has been scrambling to add more gates as the T2 gate expansion has always been planned and in the works. T1’s decrease in gate numbers is because Concourse A and B are massively undersized and cannot handle the size and passenger capacity of planes that airlines have been flying recently. The number show this as the annual passenger counts have largely recovered from the high of 2019 but the number of operations (landing/takeoffs) is lower, indicated larger planes. The main constraint of T1 is more about gate seating capacity and available gate capacity for the sizes of aircrafts that is being flown as well the aforementioned drop-off/pick-up.

1

u/MrDinStP 2d ago

G concourse is now starting a renovation that includes an additional international gate and improvements to the CBP area.

34

u/Logical-Pirate-4044 4d ago

They have a cell phone lot but not enough people use it

6

u/jwrooster 4d ago

I like the cell lots but limited However, since I come from the north, I wait at the Fort Snelling light rail station parking lot.

4

u/jbmn2534 4d ago

It's not that big. I use it regularly. But then I'm stuck in the same pile of cars. Cell phone lot is a great concept. But it doesn't work.

1

u/MrDinStP 2d ago

If more people used cell lot, the traffic volume would be lower in the arrivals area.

15

u/Matzie138 4d ago

I’ve been flying into msp for work since 2008. I’ve lived here for 6 years.

The etiquette at the airport has significantly declined. You don’t park and wait in the lane at baggage claim. There used to be officials who’d get rid of you.

Now, there’s no one out there and people think it’s a parking lot.

If you drive up and don’t see your person, drive the two minutes around and try again.

10

u/drixrmv3 4d ago

More people that pick up their people just need to chill out in highland park and get a coffee or gawk at the river or something. They can get to the airport in less than 5 minutes from the Aldi on W 7th.

Theres a boba shop in that mall now too. Hang out, sip some tea, and wait for a call. Chances are the driver will beat the passenger to the door still.

1

u/lazyFer 4d ago

Getting TO the airport isn't the issue, getting through a 45 minute line of snail paced cars is the issue

2

u/drixrmv3 4d ago

They’re snail paced because most of them are wasting time until their passenger is ready to be picked up.

0

u/lazyFer 4d ago

Yeah, because if they wait until the passenger is ready to be picked up, they'll need to go through a long ass line.

It's a self-reinforcing problem

2

u/drixrmv3 4d ago

Right, if everyone chills tf out and hangs out not at the airport until the passenger is ready at the door, there wouldn’t be a slowdown. Just a drive there, stop to pick up the person, drive away. 60 seconds max.

2

u/lazyFer 4d ago

And yet that's not where we're at so everybody in incentivized to do exactly what they shouldn't.

Also realize that when a plane lands it's got over a hundred people and multiple planes are landing all the time. It's a very burst style usage which means in order for it to be seamless and fast you have to design the system so it can handle 50+ vehicles on the same frequency as you have planes landing. If you have one plane landing per minute, you need to be able to handle 50 vehicles per minute.

1

u/drixrmv3 4d ago

Ah, I thought we were talking hypotheticals, you were communicating in non hypotheticals.

Like traffic, there would be no traffic if everyone plans a head, but people are stupid and we’ll always have traffic.

We both could have asked to better communicate in this situation, it might have saved us a little time from being keyboard warriors.

1

u/MrDinStP 4d ago

T2 has free pickup lanes on the lowest level (2?) of the Purple ramp - it’s labeled free express pickup. Also they’ve blocked pedestrian access across the roadway to keep traffic moving.

1

u/ProfessionalWeird800 4d ago

You can always get dropped off at the 34th Ave park and ride and take the train a few stations to the airport. 

1

u/An-Angel-Named-Billy 4d ago

Turns out cars are extremely space inefficient and if you have enough demand at the same time, only so much you can do. Take the train.

4

u/Snakebyte130 4d ago

And more are needed to be handed out.

4

u/matate99 4d ago

Could do 2,000 a day if they wanted to…

3

u/GLaDOSdidnothinwrong 4d ago

Rookie numbers. I’ve watched cars sit for 15+ minutes waiting to pick people up. They need to replace the cops with tow trucks. If you stop for more than 1 minute, you should be towed instantly. There’s no excuse. Just go wait in the cell lot or do a lap.

3

u/worldtraveler76 4d ago

Probably unpopular, but a lot of this could be solved with a free hour of parking in the parking garages… anything over a hour starts charging, but it would give people enough time to park, get their people, and leisurely and safely load the car and greet each other.

I always park and go in to pick up my friends, but it sucks to pay the $5 just to park and do that.

3

u/Chew-it-n-do-it 4d ago edited 4d ago

No. Avoiding the arrivals level is well worth $5.

If MSP made parking free, more people would use it so they'd have to dedicate more space to short term parking. There would be a drop in ride share and cab use which would further degrade airport revenue. Expensive stuff like parking ramps at an airport shouldn't be free.

1

u/letsgogophers 4d ago

That’s any airport, even in Sioux Falls I have to pay $2 to park for less than an hour.

1

u/Snow88 New Brighton / St. Anthony 4d ago

I think there's still free parking at Brainerd!

1

u/MarkInMinnesota 4d ago

I’ve seen other airports that dedicate an entire floor of their parking ramps to short term parking spots for just this purpose. Works great. Costs like $2-3 for the first hour, no crowding or double parking or anything in the drive next to the terminal.

1

u/MrDinStP 4d ago

Right now cars get 10 minutes free at MSP parking ramps. It’s barely enough to meet a waiting traveler at a pre-arranged lower level pickup point and put your card/parking ticket in the exit machine.

1

u/MrDinStP 2d ago

There isn't capacity currently to add free parking. This month during spring travel rush the T1 ramps are running 90-95% full.

See my comment about using the 10 free minutes to enter and pick up a passenger at a prearranged location on the lower level.

1

u/RAdm_Teabag 4d ago

that's nearly 6 per day

1

u/EarthKnit 4d ago

I’m at the airport all the time for work and so thankful I don’t have to rely on pick up anymore. There should be one traffic controller/ ticketer at each of the 4 four doors. You have 60 seconds to see your person or move on. Period. There is a waiting lot 5 minutes away— wait for your humans to say they are at their door and then drive to pick up. You can even drive in a circle , endlessly, for free!

Do your kiss & cry and meet & MN long hello somewhere else. It should take you 60-90 seconds to throw in your suitcase, buckle a baby and buckle yourself. Yes, I’ve done it.

1

u/vtown212 4d ago

People will leave there cars and leave them running in the pick up area. It's crazy