Driving them crazy
Airport’s electronic board says spots open where there are none
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/11/2011 (5154 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
LIES, damned lies, and parking spots.
People visiting Winnipeg’s new airport say the electronic board indicating the number of available parking spots in its parkade is highly fictitious.
“I can’t find a spot. The (electronic) listing says there are 189 spots open, and I can’t find one,” said Kerry Pollock, who was visiting the new airport to check it out.
“They have to work out the bugs. Parking is No. 1.”
On Tuesday, standing in the parkade was like watching an episode of Candid Camera. Joan Doyle was observed driving round and round and round and round. And round. And she still couldn’t find a spot. Yet the electronic board indicated there were 145 spots on that floor. At the same time, the electronic board said P4, the top floor, was full, so she avoided it. In fact, the top floor was half empty.
She only found a spot on the third level when the Free Press and a motorist about to leave ended her frustration and flagged her down.
“I’m driving round and round and I’m paying for it,” she said. In fact, each half hour of parking is $2. If you park one minute over half an hour, it’s another $2, and so on, up to a daily maximum of $18.
Her parking stub showed she entered the parkade at 3:24. She didn’t find a spot until 3:37. She spent 13 minutes driving up and down aisles looking for a parking spot.
Same for Shawn Lounsbury.
“Levels P2 and P3 are full and I drove around both of them,” she said. However, the electronic board showed there were 195 spots on P2 and 149 on P3, when she entered the parkade. She finally parked on the top floor, P4.
“The system is all messed up.”
People who have used the parkade say that has been the situation for up to two weeks.
It’s not a new revenue generator for the airport authority to pay the costs of its new facility, said Christine Alongi, Winnipeg Airports Authority spokeswoman.
It’s a glitch, she said. The airport’s transportation crew said they had fixed the problem earlier Tuesday, Alongi said.
However, the Free Press found the electronic parking scoreboard was way out later that day.
The parkade was built in 2005, but its malfunction is ill-timed with the opening of the new Richardson International Airport.
bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca
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