Dear Interim SESE Director Ramon Arrowsmith, Dean of Natural Sciences for the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Dean Cox, Associate Director Faculty and Inclusive Community Christy Till, Arizona State University President Michael Crow

We are employees of the Arizona State University School of Earth and Space Exploration who demand an end to the exploitive parking fees we are forced to pay as employees simply to perform our jobs on campus as is required. We perform spacecraft operations, hardware development, and vital scientific research that ASU greatly benefits from. On Thursday, March 19th we received an email from ASU Parking and Transportation Services that the annual parking fee for the Rural Road garage adjacent to the ISTB4 building where we work was increasing 32% ($230) from $720 to $950. Paying $720 annually simply to park at our workplace was already exploitive, but this increase to nearly a thousand dollars is simply unacceptable. Alternatives to commuting by car are prohibitive to us because:

Many SESE roles require in-person work on campus for mission operations, hardware development, and lab work, with very limited to no WFH options. The cost of parking therefore creates a substantial and unavoidable expense for many employees. With mission operations and other projects that SESE is involved in, teams operate on non-standard schedules including early mornings, late nights, and constantly changing shift times that make carpooling and public transit unrealistic. For example, the start times for Mastcam-Z Downlink Operations can be as early as 5 AM. At those hours, public transportation options are extremely limited and unsafe, forcing us to walk over alone to the nearest operating bus stop as early as 4 AM. It is obviously unsafe for anyone, but especially women and minorities to walk alone in those hours. Additionally, the unreliability of public transportation schedules undoubtedly would lead to us arriving late to our mission operations shifts, negatively impacting daily operations and ASU’s reputation with our partners at NASA and other agencies.

The reality is that Tempe's public transport infrastructure is limited and not accessible for all. Even if transit is available at the needed times, bus/tram stop locations can mean an increase in daily walking distance that is not feasible for some people due to physical limitations. There is also the fact that in 2024 and in 2025 the Phoenix area saw over one hundred days over 100°F. That heat makes it unsafe to walk to or stand outside waiting for public transportation for a number of employees with varying health conditions.

There are also broader safety concerns with walking, biking, or using scooters as an alternative means of transportation outside of concerns about unsafe weather conditions. According to data published by the city of Tempe, from August 2023 to July 2025 (the most recent data available) there were four hundred and fifty six injuries and eight fatalities of pedestrians and pedacyclists within the city of Tempe during those 24 months. That averages over four injuries per week and one fatality every three months for the most recent two years of data. At SESE it is particularly important for many teams to maintain consistent staffing for critical mission work in collaboration with NASA and international partners. If we ride bicycles, scooters, or walk to work and are injured, significant stress will be put on mission timelines and the rest of the team while we are out on medical leave. This could lead to a decrease in productivity, and possibly even a case where we are unable to meet mission deadlines.

Arizona State University and the School of Earth and Space Exploration both benefit greatly from our work on NASA missions, NASA-funded research, and the support roles that make that work possible. We, the workers, should not be exploited into paying hundreds of dollars simply to work at the location we are required to be at.

Because we are required to work on campus in the ISTB4 building and alternatives to driving are limited, impractical, and non-inclusive, we respectfully ask that the School of Earth and Space Exploration work with ASU Parking and Transportation Services to waive parking fees for all of the essential in-person employees.