Unscientific survey: Parking at work

[Zoe Friloux]

Our upcoming move to a new building has had many people -- not just copy editors -- grumpy for months about the change in parking arrangements.
How does parking work at your newspapers? Is there an employee lot? Do you have to pay? If so, is it the market rate? Do you only have access after a certain time (such as after all the advertising reps go home)?

[Jim Thomsen]

At the Kitsap Sun, our employee lots are a downhill block from the office. We pay about $12 a month through an automatic payroll deduction.

Night-siders like me usually park on the street till 5 p.m., then move into the customer-and-ad-rep-and-manager lot alongside the building after 5 p.m. If we're even a bit late moving our vehicles after 5 p.m., we can be assured of finding a ticket on our windshields from the city parking Nazis for having exceeded the two-hour street-parking maximum.

Our parking situation isn't good, and it's made worse by the fact that our building is in the heart of a downtown area that's always clogged with cars because it's within a few blocks of both the ferry to Seattle and the local Navy shipyard.

I don't see that anything will change. It's just an annoyance we have to learn to live with. I'm sure a lot of others here have it much worse.

What's it like at the Rocky Mountain Oyster, Zoe?

[Zoe Friloux]

I think some people have come to see parking -- or at least being able to use the employee lot for free after 5 p.m. -- as an entitlement. There won't be any free onsite parking anymore, although those who are getting the garage spots will be paying less than market rates.

[Deirdre Edgar]

There's an employee garage at the Times, which costs $1.40 or so per day. If you carpool (as I do, which is why I don't know the exact daily rate), you can sign up for a placard and park for free. It's about a half-block from the employee entrance to the building.

At the Oregonian, we paid to park at a meter or in a lot, either by the day or by the month. It wasn't so bad parking on the street at a meter until they lengthened the meters' run until 7 p.m. When they only ran until 6, you could arrive for your 3 p.m. desk shift and find a three-hour meter, and you were good for the night. Now, anyone at a meter has to plug sometime between 3 and 7. But then, that's always a good excuse to make a Starbucks run at the same time.

[Zoe Friloux]

Even some of the people complaining about parking admit they're excited about the Starbucks that will be in the new building.

[Jim Thomsen]

I'm excited about the Starbucks that will be opening in the bathroom of the Starbucks nearby.

[pdevlin]

We (The Times-Picayune in New Orleans) are in an industrial part of town, and we have a fairly large parking lot that is open -- free -- to all. Our building sits alongside an overpass with plenty of parking underneath that, wait, scratch that. There USED to be plenty of parking there. Currently that entire space is fill with flooded-out cars awaiting towing. Also: the few garage spaces for ad reps and muckety-mucks are fair game anytime after 6 p.m., which means they fill up with the press room pickups then.

[dangermike]

We have very few parking restrictions here. And very few spaces. If we can't find a spot in one of the lots around the building, we use the street till about 5 or so. It's all free. I hate to feel entitled to anything, but something doesn't sit right about paying to park at work.

[Renee]

My office is just on the outskirts of the downtown core, so we have a free lot supplemented by one upper deck. The company donated a series of spaces to the city a few years back, but we got access to a wonderful riverwalk out of the deal -- so if we are willing to hoof it along the scenic river, employees now have free parking for all downtown events.

The other paper in my chain that I worked for also had free parking along a river, but you had to cross the street. It had a drop-arm gate with a box which appeared to require a code, but if you drove up to it, it became obvious that there was just a single button. Big secret, that code.

The two downtown core places I have worked have had attached or buried garages with half price or otherwise discounted rates for nightsiders. In both cases I would prefer my car be inside and guarded at night.

[Offthegrid]

At my last job, the parking was $12/month off your paycheck, whether you used the free lot or the garage. Now I'm paying $24/month through my paycheck for a garage.

[Renee]

$12/month off your paycheck, whether you used the free lot or the garage

Doesn't a $12 payroll deduction make it inherently NOT a free lot? Or do you mean free as in no assigned parking spaces?

[Paul Soucy]

When USAT moved to the far suburbs a few years ago, much was made of the fact that parking would be free. And it is (although they lock the main garage door at 9 and make you drive around to the servants' entrance). For years we were in rented space close to the city, and everyone had to pay to use the garage in the building ... except those of us who came in after 5 pm. For us, it was free. What a time it was. A time of innocence, really.

[Niko Dugan]

My paper's building sits in the middle of the downtown area of the city. The building has its own lot directly behind it, and there is a much larger city lot behind that with reserved spaces until 5 p.m. I was given a placard when I arrived that allowed me to park in the back half of the city lot. So far as I know, there has not been a payroll deduction for that.

Of course, the nightsiders are also allowed to park in the paper's lot right behind the main employee entrance after 4 p.m., when the ad reps leave for the day. This usually means parking closer to work after my dinner break, though on weekends, all bets are off, and the employee lot is ours for the taking.

[David Sullivan]

We have a 5-floor garage we own across the street, plus an adjacent surface lot. We have so much space in fact (thanks to Knight Ridder, RIP, and its cutbacks) that we now rent out spots in the garage.

Parking has been $10.40 a week since nearly forever. Some garages in Center City charge upward of $20 a day at peak times, so this is quite a bargain.

20 years ago when we printed in this building we did not have enough parking for everyone, and cars were getting broken into on the street and people were chased by guys with 2X4s and the like. Central Philadelphia is much safer now than then, but I am always appalled to hear of newspapers that don't provide guarded employee parking for nightsiders.

(We also have an hourly shuttle that takes people home at night if they live in Center City, or to the train station.)

[Gatekeeper]

Free parking in a lot that's right behind the main building. On the off chance it's full, there's street parking nearby.

My only annoyance? When folks driving gigantic trucks pull their monsters into the lot and take up two or three spaces.

Gatekeeper

-30-

[Gerri Berendzen]

I think this might be a function of where your paper's offices are located. The Herald-Whig is downtown, and if you want to park in the lot across the street, you have to pay $15 or so a month. I've always done street parking, which is plentiful during my work hours. (I'm not sure it would be for 9-5 people).
When I worked in St. Louis in the suburbs, we had a large free lot surround our building. Ad reps and reporters parked in front, but nothing was far from a door.
One thing to consider is that if parking was free and now it isn't that's a benefit that's being taken away. Of course, the same thing happens when they keep raising the employee cost of insurance.

[JerseyJoe]

I work at a newspaper in a city, in a bad part of town, just off a main highway.
Our parking lot is free and right next to the building.
Before our recent merger of printing operations with our sister paper, you could walk out the door after a shift, say goodnight to the security guard, and see a very busy lot with the delivery trucks pulling up to the loading docks and other activity.
Now when you walk out after a shift you hope the security guard is still there (hasn't gone home early) and see your car as one of only 3-4 left in a lot devoid of activity.

[Offthegrid]

$12/month off your paycheck, whether you used the free lot or the garage

Doesn't a $12 payroll deduction make it inherently NOT a free lot? Or do you mean free as in no assigned parking spaces?

There is a locked garage, and then a lot that is for customers. After 5, we are permitted to park there. However, nightsiders are made to pay for parking regardless of which location they choose to park. So, I guess you are right: It is technically not a "free" lot.

[Paul Hampton]

Plenty of free parking in Biloxi.

[Mike O'Connell]

They're introducing paid parking for cyclists in my downtowm. Bummer for me.

[Daniel Hunt]

We have lots of free parking, spread out over a three-block area, and lots of confusion.



The first is a "paid/exec" lot directly south of the building. If they don't give you a space, you can buy one for $300 a year, I think.

The second is a blend of free and paid across an alley. Same rules as the first apply, except for eight double-spaces, which the advertising folks eat up early. If you park in the second slot of a "free" space, you have to let the person you've blocked know you're there and move when they want to leave. There are also poorly marked company car slots. If you park there, someone from the ad department slaps a bright orange sticker with the word "Violator" on your driver-side window. It takes copious amounts of Goo-Gone and a razor blade to remove.

These two lots are "free" after 5 p.m. I made the mistake of parking once in the publisher's "guest slot" at 4:30 p.m. and never heard the end of it. The additional caveat: If you don't have a permit, you'll be towed.

We're in a downtown area and surrounded by a gaggle of bars (No surprise, right?). Every night, at least three cars are towed from those lots because they don't have the permit. Our rent-a-cop crack security team has been known to tow employee's car because the permit "slipped under the dash." They been better about coming inside to say something before they call the tow truck, but sometimes $350 mistakes happen. There's also the added worry of the bar crowd urinating on your car or breaking into it. They have cameras on these lots, but building services has yet to ID the suspects of three breakins and an all-out theft (though I think the latter was the result of a lush reporter forgetting where he left his ride -- no one ever knew exactly what happened but he did buy another car two days later).

Then, three blocks away, are two lots: one paved, one dirt. You can guess which one is bad for the car. They are always filled in the day and insidiously dark and empty at night. Security tows from there, too. So copy editors who get a space there always move it around sundown 'cause if you're not afraid of being towed, you're in fear of being mugged or having a broken window. No cameras there.

Then, then, then, sigh, we have an arraignment with the mall two blocks away, where we can park on the second floor of their three-story complex. That's at least lighted and patrolled at night. In between us and that is a city lot, with 2- and 10-hour slots. But at a quarter for 15 minutes, most opt to look elsewhere.

On quiet nights there are five spaces on the street in front of the building. These are primo but metered six days a week. I work Sundays, so after eating out, I'll take a space and pat myself on the back.

Still there? OK, I'm being overdramatic, sure. But it's just one more hassle on the way to work. I'm lucky that I live blocks away and can walk. But with a major reconstruction the town's only highway, those living in surrounding cities look like they've been working 10 hours before they've even turned on the monitor. Bear in mind this isn't in a major metropolitan area — it's Wine Country. I often have a easier time finding street parking at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.

We just had a new copy editor join the desk and I think she got a three-page pamphlet explaining the parking situation and various scenarios.

Who needs a therapist when you can vent online? Maybe I'm just trying to put off the pile of laundry that needs to be done.

[irishgal09]

at the washington post, you wait a few years and then fight a death match to get a spot when one comes available on one of the two small underground parking floors (they're not big enough to be called decks). it took me six years, but i got a night spot (meaning that technically you can't park until after 7 but in reality you can get a spot after 4 and anytime on wkends). the price is $65/month -- about a third of what i paid at the lot across the street (including tips), where you had to retrieve your car by 1 a.m.

[Jacksonville Lisa]

Very late reply....been awhile since I visited the forums. We rent our office out of a 13-story building. The building management has an attached parking garage and we get free parking (at least it's free to us, perhaps the company pays for our spots as part of the rent) in said garage. MY only annoyance is those folks in the BMWs, Jaguars and Mercedes who feel the need to take up two spots to avoid door dings. That is the ultimate in rude arrogance in my mind. Excuse the rant. :)

[wordnerdy]

Five years ago, the company built a new office outside of downtown. It's in an area that, ten years ago, was on the edge of rural and suburb, but now is just outside of town. (The Nation's Oldest City is near the first- and ninth-fastest growing areas of the country. Hoo-rah.)

We have big parking lots with lights right by the building on land with no other development at the intersection of two state roads. I wish there were a few more lights, though. I try to move my car closer to the door at dinner, just so I don't have to walk as far or get in my car with no nearby light.

It's so much better than the place where I used to work.

That building was in downtown Jacksonville. You could park on-street if you were lucky, but meters are only good for two hours. I worked as a reporter and had to be in Entirely Too Early, so I usually sought a meter.

The alternative, the free (to us) parking, was at a lot near the sports complex. We rode the trolley in to the city center. It wasn't terribly far, but enough to make walking difficult. You just had to hope the trolleys were on time and you didn't miss your ride, which I usually did.

I actually rode my bike as much as possible then. It was about two miles and I could keep my bike in the prepress room downstairs. The only bad thing was getting caught in the rain.

[Jim Thomsen]

One of the great perverse pleasures where I work is running off the people who use the company lot outside our building as lazy — and illegal — parking for functions at the performing arts center across the street. (Of course, we don't really have anybody to enforce this, but that'll be our little secret.)

I step up on occasion because I get annoyed when I pull in there on nights and weekends only to find the lot filled with people who couldn't find a street-side parking spot for the ballet or a visiting juggle troupe or whatever. So whenever I spot one, I approach them with a friendly smile as though I'm doing them a favor: "Um, folks, they don't want you to know this — but they will tow anybody who isn't a Sun employee and doesn't have the Sun parking tag thing hanging from their rearview mirror."

(Those tags are only for our paid daytime lots a block away ... but again, that'll be our little secret.)

I chuckle evilly to myself as I watch Mr. Black Tuxedo and Mrs. Mink Stole get back in their Mercedes and drive off, thoroughly chastened.

You gotta get your pleasures in life where you can.

[maggie leung]

We're in a business park -- plenty of free parking.