For years Mike Chalker, a senior parking services monitor at the North Campus parking deck, watched traffic clog up in the deck as drivers tried to leave at rush hour.
Traffic sometimes backed up for 30 minutes, and Chalker hated to see UGA employees lose time they could be spending with their families, churches or community organizations.
With an average wait time of 20 minutes, Chalker saw it as a waste of 32,000 hours a year for the 500 faculty and staff members permitted to park in the deck. And since time is money, he estimated that about $700,000 worth of their time, at an average of $20 an hour, was being wasted.
“I tried to think of a simple solution,” Chalker said, “a plan where you could get in and out of the deck quickly, that wouldn’t cause an inconvenience.”
After three years of studying, Chalker eventually found that there were four factors contributing to the traffic jam: lines of traffic crisscrossing and blocking the second exit; a mix of permit and pay-by-the-hour customers who exited at different speeds; no express lane for permit customers and street gridlock that further backed up exit lines.
To make traffic flow better out of the deck, both exits needed to be used more efficiently and there should be an express lane just for permit holders. To eliminate the criss-crossing lines of traffic, Chalker suggested reversing traffic flow, starting with a right turn entry into the deck from Jackson Street.
He took his plan to his supervisor in 2006, but it didn’t go anywhere. In February, he made his suggestion to the new management, and four months later his plan was completed and in use.
This time, Don Walter, manager of parking services, looked at Chalker’s eight-page proposal and thought it would work. Walter passed the plan on to Doug Ross, director of auxiliary services, and George Stafford, associate vice president of auxiliary and administrative services, who both backed the plan.
The redesign took 10 days: five business days and five weekend or holiday days to complete. Ramps were rerouted, and parking spaces were repainted. The deck also got new signs and a speed bump near the Thomas Street exit.
In addition to being executed quickly, the plan cost around 1/50th of what it would have cost to build a new ramp, one of the solutions previously discussed for the deck congestion.
“Overwhelmingly, people have liked it,” Chalker said. “We’ve had all kinds of compliments and people telling us how much they liked it. Not only in the deck, but when I’m walking down the street, at the Mayflower restaurant or at Borders bookstore. Even at church people come up to me and tell me how much they appreciate the change because they’re all getting out (of the deck) more quickly. I’m starting to feel almost like a rock star,” he joked.
Wait times have decreased, and it’s rare for waits to exceed three minutes for permit holders in the express lane.
The project was a group effort, said Chalker, who also credits staff members, including: Mike Cosby, Savannah Thigpen, Neal Evans, Sandra Chambers, Isabelle Robbins, Chakir O’Neal, Leanne Fouche, Tysen Dedufour, Brian Fricks, John Buechler, Linwood Hill, Sidney Wall, Tanya Knox, Linda Pack, Sue Hopewell and Carolyn McGalliard.
