I have been remiss in my blogging and I know that one way to break writer’s block is to simply start writing and see what comes out.
We have beaten on street parking to death, and I am sure that there will be more to talk about as soon as the results are in on the installation of on street sensors in San Francisco and Concord as well as in Los Angeles. I’ll let that percolate for a few weeks and then get on them.
In the mean time, what about stack parking…Every summer we trek to the Hollywood bowl and experience that wonder of wonders, stack parking. Its either that or walk five blocks up hill, which I often have though was not a really bad choice.(At least as I sit there waiting for the guy in front of me to come and let 100 cars start moving.)
Have you ever noticed that everyone sits there for about 15 minutes, and then all the cars start to move at once, like a herd of buffalo, backing and rocking forward to jockey around the three people who must have been sitting in the back row or were finishing up their dinner while waiting for everyone else to leave.
I believe that people in the front of the line in stack parking have a moral obligation to get to their cars as quickly as possible. But….I digress.
When I pay my $10 and get a receipt I always wonder just where that ten spot is going to end up. There are no formal lanes, no counters, just a young man or woman standing there with an apron filled with money and receipts. Now I guess the rule is that they have to return to the office with either money or receipts, but it always seemed too easy to me for them to simply just not give a receipt to every 4th car and keep the money. Of course, the place always fills, and the operator must know just how many cars there should be and how much should have been collected. If the place holds 1000 cars and there is money for 975, couldn’t someone justify the difference as the fellow who was waving the cars into the rows where they parked leaving a bit too much space between each car. It wouldn’t take too much space (Maybe an extra foot between each car) to lower the gross number of cars in the lot.
And does the operator really go in and count the number of cars in the lot each night? Perhaps one could steal only on nights when the lot wasn’t full, say when they were playing a Bartok concerto or that new work by some American composer/conductor/bass drum player. My guess is that when it lot isn’t full, you could easily steal three or four hundred and no one would ever know.
So how do you stop it?
How bout supervision. Have supervisors watch and ensure that there is a ticket on every car. Also, check every car to be sure that there is a ticket on it. Counters — Put non resettable counters in the lanes and make them work. How about having each "cashier" handle a certain area in the lot with an exact number of cars and stay with that area until its filled. Then you can count the cars and expect $10 for each car.
But I’m rambling. I have little expertise in stack parking and all I do have is from observation and experience as a parker. Anyone out there have a better solution?
JVH
