I was trying to leave work today when I came to the realization that parking garages might be the most user unfriendly places in the world. Perhaps that is an overstatement, but they certainly have their place high in the rankings of horrible user experiences. I’ve encountered many different garages and lots thought my life. And almost without exception they all seem to go out of their way to make things more difficult for the humble driver.
In the case of my work’s parking garage, their main faults lie in two places. One, the unbelievably confusing layout of the garage. I’d chalk this one up to the original architect, if only they hadn’t recently “renovated” the whole place last year with new signs, lines and car pathways. I’ve been parking there for over two years and still frequently get confused. There are constantly people driving the wrong way down the multitude of one-way only corridors. Not only do the one-ways have seemingly no correlation with each other, but the up and down ramps to get from level to level routinely skip levels and are almost all one-way as well. I once was trying to exit from some middle level floor and ended up on the top floor just because I followed a one-way path.1
If the horrible layout was the only problem, I might be able to forgive them. But they also routinely close the path to one of the two exits. Sometimes it seems sort of legitimate, because nobody is operating any of the exit booths, but sometimes they’ll close the path to an exit and leave another path open. This is infuriating when the exit I need is closed only because of the exit path I choose to use to leave my level. I’m now stuck going out the wrong side of the garage and basically have to drive around the block to get back to the other exit. It’s sort of like going to the movies and being told that you have to sit in the front even though there are seats right in the middle and the reason is “just because.” 2
There really seems to be no reason for this beyond the fact that parking is based firmly on the supply and demand principal. They have the place to put your car, you have to put your car somewhere, you have to put your car in their garage. They don’t care about customer service and user experience. At all. Because they can charge whatever they want and know that tons of people are forced pay because they’re the only game in town. Does making lots of money excuse you from providing quality service? Not necessarily, but in the parking industry it appears to go hand in hand.
They could spend an hour or two actually plotting out some sensible navigation paths. They could think about why they’re closing a certain path and use some signage to let the driver know. They could spend a few more dollars and purchase a ticket machine that doesn’t break down once a week. Let me know when you do and perhaps I won’t be seen cursing in my car everyday around nine and five.
1. They had some work going on that blocked part of the intended path, still, I think this was stupid.
2. Obviously my analogy would be way worse, but I’m trying to make a point here.