The Worst Parking Deck in Charlotte Isn’t Designed for People
Before I get in to it: Yes my daughter was in the Levine Children’s Hospital. No, it wasn’t that serious. Yes, she’s totally fine now. Also, CMC made the (socially correct) decision to stop charging for parking at this deck during the time my daughter was recovering. So, props to that.
For about 3 weeks this summer, I was spending between 3 and 6 hours every day at Charlotte’s renowned Levine Children’s Hospital on the CMC Main campus. My wife was there more. I’d never spent that much time ferrying myself and family back and forth between home and a medical center, and while there are many surreal aspects to that experience, there was one thing that was an ongoing frustration: the parking structure.
I’ll have you know I read Creative Confidence and most of The Design of Everyday Things. Basically, I know enough to be miserable about the design of everything most of the time. However, if something is bad enough that my wife agrees with my complaining right away, it’s probably bad enough to look closer. The parking structure at CMC Main is that bad. Worse, even: It’s not designed for people to use.
It’s ugly at a time when people need beauty.
There’s only a few reasons people go to the hospital. Someone is sick. Someone is recuperating from being sick. Someone is being born. None of these are relaxing, casual situations. Often, they’re the kind of situation that amplifies every other burden that crosses your path. Pulling your car into a 40-year-old stack of concrete and sickly yellow lighting doesn’t really set a positive mood. The age of this structure shows on almost every surface and interaction. The outside world is barely visible even when you’re parked directly adjacent to the open sides. Most importantly, this is the first environmental experience that most visitors and many patients have during a visit to the CMC campus, yet it feels decaying and unkempt.
There are a lot of good, effective things that CMC does to make their patients and visitors comfortable and happy, but I’m here to say that when this is the one thing that produces the most negative memories about my entire experience, it means something. Here’s another way to put it: You’re visiting your Grandma’s recovery room. You notice a vase of flowers in the corner which has completely died and started to grow mold. Do you A) Walk to the gift shop and buy her a stuffed animal or B) Clean up the rotting mess before getting something else pleasant to look at.
Being ugly isn’t enough though. Part of why it’s ugly is also a functional problem, which is actually exasperated by the state of mind of most of its users. Which brings me to…
There’s no room for error, or much of anything else.
I don’t know how old this parking deck is, but it’s clearly no spring chicken. This obviously affects the aesthetics of the space, but I’m past that at this point. Let’s talk about actual usability.
The parking spots in this garage are just too small. It’s not enough that you really notice it at first, but when you see as many crooked placements and tight squeezes as I did, it becomes pretty clear. Something is up with the geometry of the space, and people can’t get their SUV’s fat asses in place. Compound this with the fact that many cars are parked in the garage for long stretches of time. Someone making a boo-boo at Target might be a problem for 45 minutes. Here, it’s on order of hours or days.
My friends and family know that I don’t exactly have a love affair with modern car culture, but there’s no changing the fact that cars are just bigger now than 20 or 30 years ago. When the problem is this evident, any response that implies fault with the user is lazy and counterproductive. People like big cars now. People drive big cars now. Having a poorly marked parking structure isn’t going to change their minds, it just makes it hard to squeeze into the spots when they’re likely already under duress.
More mental anguish: When I drove to the hospital every, it was a guarantee that I would experience 3–5 “fake” parking spots due to crooked cars, compact car spots, or this amazing architectural detail pulled directly from Dante’s most celebrated work:
You can bet that many drivers slowed down to check these teases out or even gave them a go before realizing it was impossible, leading to slowdowns (more on that below). But hey, you’ll eventually find parking (except for the 3–4 days the lot was completely full by 11:30AM).
Right of Way more like Wrong of Way amirite
The parking spots aren’t the only problem this structure has with scale. The lane between the spots is an almost perfect mix of all of the other issues focused together like some sort of Power Rangers finishing move.
The root of it all is that the drive is just too narrow. This tees up a nasty synergy with the poorly spaced parking spots. Most drivers need to correct their parking after pulling in, and even a small amount of movement out of the parking spot means all other traffic grinds to a halt. I spent probably 2 hours of my life waiting in a pack of 2–4 other cars just so one other driver can get a lock on their positioning. God forbid there’s someone trying to leave in the adjacent lane.
It gets worse. The turn at the end of each level is flanked by a filthy, ugly concrete wall that impedes line of sight and prevents all but the smallest of economy cars the ability to turn without crossing into the other lane. Result: even turning around the designated geometry of the space requires a coordinated effort between drivers causing stops, slow downs, and (personally) a sense of impending doom.
See that orange barricade? Yeah, that means that people used to be able to park there, but at some point the operators got fed up with cars getting dinged by everyone else attempting to, how should I put this, drive around the only option for forward movement.
There’s one last F-U in store for those leaving the deck. It hit me pretty hard as I was sleep deprived and not yet a seasoned veteran of this particular theater of war. Quick, look at this picture and tell me what you see:
If you said, “Hey, its the gaping Hellsmouth out of this dungeon!”, WRONG. Didn’t you see the small, unlit sign above the streaming rays of sunlight beckoning you forth? No, this is the “exit” to an enclosed driveway for access to one of the specialty centers. Honestly, it’s proof positive that the garage was built at a time that the rest of the CMC campus wasn’t nearly as densely built and has not been able to keep up with the growth. The real exit is down and to the left of this view, but when you haven’t slept more than 4 hours in the last 2 days you might be tricked into doing something rational.
“Pedestrians? Oh, you mean ‘naked drivers’?”
Finally, throw into this melee: people. You know, the actual users of this space? The ones who are here to tend to matters of health and family? The problems above mean that there’s literally no space for people to walk. It’s almost like the garage was designed by a race of Autobots looking for an economic place to rest during long road trips. Cars must routinely stop to allow 1 or 2 people to pass by, causing backups. They are often pushing strollers, wheelchairs (remember: hospital), or tending to less ambulatory family members (toddlers, elders, etc.).
On the topic of wheelchairs: I’ve visited grocery stores who make most of their money in Lotto sales that have better cart retrieval systems than this place. In a cramped environment, a single misplaced wheelchair can block a parking spot for hours, even days. There is no designated spot to return wheelchairs (at a hospital) nor is there enough room to comfortably park them near the elevators (not that anyone in a wheelchair would be using those).
There are two ways to get down from your parking spot in low earth orbit: elevators and a stairway. The elevators are commendably slow and unpredictable. Some days, it will take several minutes for the elevator to get to your level, even though there’s no one around and the trip down takes about 30 seconds. Other times, it will appear and then begin to close its doors in the amount of time it’s taken to wrangle your 6 year old on board.
Those glass doors are almost certainly built to frustrate. They’re too narrow to adequately push a wheelchair (hospital!) or stroller (children’s hospital!) through. Their poorly positioned lever makes them hard to open and keep open. And the glass wall mostly served one purpose: To spark discussion on why it wasn’t climate controlled in the only enclosed space in the structure.
The stairway nearby was honestly faster and more convenient 90% of the time. However, it’s poorly marked. I know this because I was met with sincere appreciation every time I told someone about it outside of the elevators. It also has the atmosphere of a serial killer’s dugout, especially the ground level door which looks like a service entrance.
Someone Needs to End This (Post)
I don’t think anyone at CMC harbors malicious feelings or even apathy for their patients and their families. Indeed, the only reason I’m writing this — my first Medium article — is because the parking deck is so bad as to stand in stark contrast against almost everything else (almost — way finding between departments inside is generally awkward and counter-intuitive). I think The Blue Yarn episode of 99% Invisible probably ruined me on healthcare environmental design and a heaping spoonful of my frustration was projection of a situation I couldn’t control (hospital). But, take heed ye who have positions of influence and probably will never read this: you could improve the experience of your guests tremendously by addressing this problem. Most of the people coming to your facility drive. There isn’t much in terms of public transport access to the location and Charlotte is, frankly, a car-centric city (‘atsa whole other series of articles). The parking deck is an experiential bottleneck that is universally uncomfortable, ugly, and lacks anticipation of users’ needs.
