Garage closed to protect game day revenue – creates problem that stumps even JVH

This confuses even moi, but I will give it a shot. The city of Lincoln presells parking space to folks who want to come to the Cornhusker's football games. If you know Midwest footbell, this is a huge deal. The permits for game day parking are sold on line for public garages near the stadium. Fair enough.

Lincoln parking officials close the garages Friday afternoon. This is so people won't go into the garages, park all night, stay until after the game is over, and drive out with the football fans. (It's a pay on entry facility for gameday. Can't have Cornhusker fans waiting to pay on exit.

Here's where the parking gurus in Lincoln need some input. How can they keep the garages open, allowing people who want to come downtown to visit clubs or restaurants on Friday night, and ensure they don't leave their cars overnight and drive out with the game day fans and end up parking for free?

One way might be to issue large dated permits to put on your dash. If you have a permit, you were waved out, if you didn't, use the one lane that still has a collection booth open and force those cars to pay the full amount for the time stayed. The football fans would be just waved through, the scofflaws would be made to pay.

How about this -- Post a sign at each lot saying that it closes at midnight (or whenever) and any car in the lot after that time will be towed. This would motivate people to get their cars out before the game day. I kinda like this one, and I'm sure the towing companies would love it.

Anyone out there have a solution?

JVH

   

Comments

[Charley]

The issue is not letting the people out for free after the game. The issue is space. A quick check to thier website says that the max fee is $6, they sell the gameday parking at $14. They dont want a garage full of cars before the gameday traffic comes, so they are basically reserving the garage. They are losing out on the friday night revenue, which can be big in a college town. I also bet they are losing out for the people that leave thier cars until sunday for the $14.

Get rid of the presell. Raise the rate to an event rate to an hourly rate that a normal football patron would then pay about $15, the private lots in that area are charging $20-25 for the gameday. Say 5 hours at $3. Start the rate on Friday at 5pm with no 24 hr max. If people want to park all night, fine, they pay for it. This seems to be a dangerous game they are playing with space....towing cars is not an option, PR nightmare, and its not realistic to tow 1,000 cars.

The issue of long lines after a game is not a real issue if you have the proper equiptment. My experience shows that the egress of a football game is not anyhting that a pay on foot faciltiy cant handle. People stagger out of the stadium(some do physically stagger after tailgating all day), stop to get another beer and a bite to eat or buy a t-shirt...etc....

This is what we do in State College, Pa and PSU football fills our garages every home game. Our PARCS, though not new, can handle the egress with no problems, and our stadium holds 30,000 more people. Our garages fill up the friday night before, then empty, then fill on gameday again.

[Manuel Rubio]

We face a similar situation with a large garage we manage along the Rose Parade route. The City pre-sells passes for the parade and we also sell passes the morning of the event. The challenge is clearing the garage at 2 a.m. We have opted for the passes on the dashborad or get towed. This has worked fine for us. Signs are placed at all the entrances informing parkers that they need to be out by 2 a.m. The police department will make a pass through the garage issuing tickets and then having the carrs towed. They typically do not issue more than a couple of tickets. Not too bad for a 1,600 space garage!