Parking Stall Lines, One or Two?

I recently read a very interesting article about whether or not parking stalls should be striped with single lines or double lines. The article was written by a parking consultant in Colorado so all of the data is based on a survey done strictly in selected Colorado cities. However, I think the findings are worth passing along.

Many parking locations that I have come in contact with around the country have used double lines for parking stall striping. In almost all of those cases, the owners or managers of those parking facilities were adamant in their belief that it helped to center cars within their respective stalls, that it provided the maximum space between parked vehicles and, cut down or eliminated door dings. Intuition tells you that all of that makes sense. However, since double striping the lines between parking stalls costs over twice as much as traditional single line striping, this survey was taken to see if in fact it has a positive impact on how people park their cars.

The survey was taken in 25 garages in Colorado and covered a wide array of users including office use, mixed-use, residential, health care facilities, municipal, shopping centers and others. According to the survey data, some interesting conclusions were drawn.

Single-line striping was preferred over double-line striping 72% vs. 28%.
90 degree parking spaces were preferred over angled spaces 61% vs. 39%.
7.6% of cars were parked improperly.
Parkers seem to pay little or no attention to signs or striping that designates a space for compact or small-car-only; they found a space and they parked in it.

I am not ready to pronounce double-line stall striping dead but at the very least, this cluster of data sparks my interest. Our local environment is predominantly urban core office use and our demographics in Little Rock would be somewhat different from those in the Colorado cities but I am going to investigate this issue in greater detail.

With that in mind, if you happen to see Jeff or me walking through your garage with a clipboard and a measuring wheel, we’ll just be exploring this parking stall line-striping issue!

As the spring of 2007 approached, one of our management fee clients instructed us to move forward with the scheduling of a complete wash-down of their parking facility.

We had assumed the parking operation for the garage last fall and accomplished some initial cleaning and painting when we took over. However, we all agreed that waiting for the messy winter weather to clear before we resumed our cleaning work was a prudent course of action.

We spent the first weekend using brooms and gas powered back-pack type blowers to clear off dust, cobwebs and debris from the ceiling and heavy build-up areas. We followed up a second weekend with brushes, water hoses and a small pressure washer unit. Once the surfaces dried out, the garage looked significantly brighter, smelled better and gives us a much more accurate view of which areas may need further cleaning and/or painting consideration.

Now that we have a cleaner and much clearer canvas to work with, it is obvious that the amount of painting that may need to be done is much less than we earlier anticipated. This will not only save time and material cost for the owners but will also help ensure that the paint will adhere much better and be much more durable than it would have otherwise been.

Following are some of the before and after pictures that show just how effective a simple wash-down of a parking facility can sometimes be.

Before- Years of dust and grime had accumulated on most of the horizontal surfaces throughout the garage.

After- Even though there is typical wear and tear expected in a facility of this age, many of the surfaces cleaned off nicely.

Before-

After-Note the curbing and parapet wall top surfaces.

Before-

After-

Before- There are several of these nested control points within the garage that are no longer used. The barrier gates have been long since removed but the remaining curbing and bollards were a significant repository of dirt and grime.

After- Note the conduit and the back of the guardrail in the left upper quadrant of this photo and compare it to the before shot.

After- Another old control point.

After- A control point no longer used.

Before- This wall runs along the first up-ramp into the monthly parking area and even though we had broomed it and the curbing off and painted the bottom portion yellow when we first took the garage over, it had already started to look dirty.

After- The wash-down really made a positive change in the appearance of the wall.

Before- Even though this garage is obviously in an urban setting, spiders seem to be a major non-paying tenant of the garage as evidence by their dust catching webs.

After- In several cases, the smooth painted ceiling surfaces came out acceptably clean and may not even require further painting.

Before- Another example of dirt and grime collections on some ceiling portions.

After- The wash-down removed much of the grime but in some instances like the one shown here, areas where there were lime deposits or other stains that shielded the paint from the outside elements showed up as whiter paint afterwards.

Before- Another typical example of the cobwebs and ceiling dirt.

After- Customers enjoy a much cleaner and brighter appearance.

After- Even non-painted surfaces responded well to the wash-down.

Before- There is a significant amount of extremely functional unpainted metal guardrail strategically placed throughout the garage. The downside is that it is a major dirt and dust collector.

Before- Although not as obvious in this picture as it was with the human eye, long stretches of very prominent guardrail were covered with dust. We had used a power blower upon our arrival last fall but accumulation since then was significant.

After- Pressure washing these guardrails really made a huge difference in their appearance.

After- We expect that dust and grime accumulations overall will diminish noticeably going forward merely because we have substantially eliminated so much of the dirt and grime from the facility.

After- Not only were the guardrails addressed but notice that the grime that always collects on the tops of pipes was also attacked successfully.

Before- A side view of a parapet ramp wall and curbing showing the built up grime.

After- The wash-down produced a clean and fresh looking appearance.

After- We worked right out to the exterior edges of the facility washing as much of the accumulated dirt and grime out of the entire facility as possible.

So when you’re walking your parking facility and mentally adding up the cost to make it look fresh again, don’t discount the impact a good wash down can have. You might be surprised!