Two venues, Hill Auditorium and Rackam emptying out about the same time. Liberty Square Parking Garage with one pre-pay machine out of order, one elevator not working, long lines at pay machine and elevator, and floors of cars waiting to exit the lot. Solution: re-charge every car which did not reach the exit machine within 15 minutes resulting in an additional bottleneck and wait and assurance that few would exit in the allotted time.
Liberty Square Parking Structure
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I forwarded this posting to Susan Pollay and Joe Morehouse of the DDA, in the hopes of a response.
Ha! So did I.
At 4:45 yesterday afternoon, Susan wrote:
[V]ery glad you forwarded it along so we can figure out what happened. I know that one of the 4 elevators at Liberty Square is undergoing a 4-6 week major repair/equipment upgrade, but the other 3 elevators should be in working order. Not sure why the prepay machine wasn’t working, so will talk with Republic Parking to get more info. Many thanks.
I am glad the notice was passed on. That said, my main point was that 15 minutes to exit under full house situations is not enough time. It should be sufficient to show a receipt and be given a pass if it is within half an hour of payment. Double charge for waiting in line is an insult.
Thank you for clarifying. I didn’t understand the “re-charge” phrase.
Horrifying to think of the gasoline burned and global warming incited by this system. I avoid those structures with the self-pay machines and this just feeds my claustrophobic response to them.
Right, it was a major failure of queuing theory. There were also AASO folks leaving the Michigan Theater trying to get cellos and other large instruments on elevators. As for the charge-for-being-made-to-wait-in-line behavior, this was common at the old library surface lot. They would decide to close one of the two exits and then have a rush as an event ended. They would happily charge you for an additional time increment caused by the back up.
This has happened to me in the past in a “standard pay” garage, the one between Church & Forest. I had the misfortune of leaving about the same time as all the construction workers who were leaving a job site, and waited in line 15-30 minutes, and had to pay more (plus had people waiting for me at my destination).
Whenever this kind of thing happens to me, I think “stochastic arrival times” – although I no longer remember what that phrase explains or how it might account for the situation!