By Rachel Yoka, CAPP, LEED AP BD+C

It’s funny how often parking comes up as a topic, even among the Labor Day barbecue crowd. We were talking summer trips and vacations. My mom treated the whole family to a Caribbean cruise a few years ago (way to go, Mom!) and we chatted about the different destinations, snorkeling with sea turtles, all the amazing stuff that can happen. And two things stood out in the conversation: One, Sofia, my daughter, lost my mom’s awesome pink floppy sun hat. And two, when we drove to the pier to board the boat, we waited in a car line for more than an hour, burning fuel, time, and patience.

Because we could not see around the street corners or turns to where we were going, we had no idea what caused the delay. Imagine my surprise to find  out the reason for the immense backup was not a an unloading or check-in, but that the queue for parking around only two city-size blocks was because there were just two parking attendants funneling traffic as quickly as they could to plenty of parking.

Now, I could go on and on about how they could have improved the parking experience, increased efficiency, and captured more revenue. Although I bored my family to tears with those suggestions at the time, that is not the point of this particular tale. Good or bad, parking can be a memorable experience.  Years later, one of the more standout stories from that trip is all about the parking.

So many of our members take a few moments to share their stories here on the blog. Share your story here -– we all want to hear it.

Rachel Yoka is IPI’s vice president of program development.