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Friday, September 14, 2007
System Crash at 3CDC’s Fountain Square Garage
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
Photo courtesy of here.
Why is it that 3CDC’s problems have such a keen way of finding me? This evening, my family decided to go downtown to Benihana for some live-action dinner. My wife, who was driving, parked in the 3CDC garage at Fountain Square. I got out of the garage, grabbed my son’s hand to walk toward the elevators, and two older gentlemen asked for my help. They were holding their parking ticket, and they wanted to know if I had ever parked there before. They wanted me to explain the parking system to them, because they did not understand how to pay! (What would happen if I were not around to explain such things to these poor victims?) But what’s more shocking is what happened when my turn came to leave the garage!
Because I don’t like the extra step involved in dealing with the pay station machines, and then the exit machine, I always pay by credit—at the exit—when leaving that garage. Today was no different. So I pulled with the family to the exit, inserted our ticket, and then my credit card.
The machine said “Unable to Read.”
Now, some may here attempt to insert insults—claiming that my credit card was bad, or something. I know this is false, however, since I paid for dinner with the card, and since I just got paid today. The card is actually a check-card, and I double-checked my balance just a moment ago.
The machine rejected the card (the same one I have always used), so we tried to clean the strip on the back by wiping it on my shirt, trying a second time. The machine rejected the card again. So I hit the help button, and told a voice that I only had one credit card, and that the machine was not letting me use it.
Immediately, a woman came running across the garage. First, she tried wiping my card on her shirt, hoping to clean something from the magnetic strip. It did not work, again. The machine gave us the error message, again: “Unable to Read.”
That’s when the woman started complaining. Nothing offensive—at least not toward me—but just the typical kind of thing any normal employee would do when sick and tired of dealing with the same problem repeatedly.
“We just had people out here to fix these machines,” she said. “The system keeps crashing.”
Wow.
The system keeps crashing.
People wonder why I go off on 3CDC and Fountain Square—especially since the new programming seems a success and brings people downtown. These nay-sayers like to ignore the threat to free-speech the corporatized Square brings, and more significantly they turn a blind eye to 3CDC’s general and continual ineptitude. Any private corporation with the power to so profoundly change the face of our City should be watched, carefully. And while some of what they bring might be nice, that does not excuse them from being held accountable for their problems.
And the Fountain Square project has had a continual series of problems—ever since they failed to meet their construction deadline, which was last October. I’m not even sure they’ll make it for the one year anniversary of the original opening date!
But more significantly, what does it say about 3CDC when they apparently cannot manage even these kinds of minor interfacing details?
The Fountain Square garage leaves old men wandering around in confusion, while frequent system crashes frustrate employees and make exiting the garage difficult.
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15 Sep 2007 at 09:04 am | #
This same thing happened to me about a month ago. The machine under the Westin wouldn’t take my card, the machine at the gate wouldn’t take my card and finally the woman attendant just let me out. She was so frustrated. Crash seems to be common in the garage. So I got FREE Parking!
15 Sep 2007 at 09:08 am | #
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say if you had not been around to help the “victims,” they probably would have, oh, I don’t know…pushed the help button and had an attendant immediately come to their aid, as happened later with you.
Jason, you really do have a tendency to make mountains out of molehills. Guess what. Sometimes technology doesn’t always work the way we would want it. Why don’t you post a blog every time your computer crashes (unless you have a Mac, that is), or every time your cell phone drops a call (those damn things still don’t work).
I used to work for the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. When we switched to the new circulation system, people pitched a fit, because for one day people needed their physical library card to check items out, since the new system hadn’t imported everyone’s number, and we were unable to look up their information. I know it’s apples to oranges (a favorite topic for this blog as it is), but my point is, sometimes technology takes some time to work out the kinks. You’re so bent on making yourself out to be a victim of the Square, that you will snipe at every minor inconvenience. You know what, Jason, you got out of the garage. It may have taken a few extra steps, and temporarily inconvenienced you, but you got out, and as you pointed out, “Immediately, a woman came running across the garage,” (emphasis added).
Americans have mastered two things when it comes to technology. Extreme impatience, and victimization. Why does technology at the Square always fail for me?! What the hell, let’s throw in a conspiracy theory for you to chew on. I’m sure it’s because 3CDC know’s your license plate and shut down the machine because you bash them on your little blog. Get over it. The Square’s a lot better than it used to be. The garage is a lot better than it used to be, and it’s comforting to know that if I need help, a professional is on the way, and I don’t simply have to rely on a weirdo in a cape to save the day.
Hope you enjoyed Benihana. Must have been nice to have a convenient, well-lit, safer garage in the middle of downtown to provide convenient parking at low prices.
15 Sep 2007 at 09:20 am | #
Ex Librarian,
I do have a Mac, and I can’t remember the last time my computer crashed.
I did enjoy Benihana, but I would have enjoyed it more with either $1 parking (like the old garage), or not having so much trouble when trying to leave.
I’m not really one to soak in the aesthetics of parking garage paint while on my way to an elevator.
I did notice, however, that they still haven’t cut wheelchair curbs on the east side of the elevator area, though handicapped parking spots are on those sides.
And they still have a wheelchair curb cut on the Westin side, the elevators of which lead only to steps.
15 Sep 2007 at 09:22 am | #
Maybe you should check out the archives of the Print Edition Cincinnati Beacon. We found a woman who could not get out of the garage late at night because the machine would not recognize her ticket.
Thank God her friend, who parked somewhere else, was with her—otherwise she would have been stuck. No one answered the help button, and she could find no one, anywhere.
How scary! This was a young woman after midnight!
15 Sep 2007 at 11:02 am | #
You experience 1 crash. How can you claim that it crashes all the time? Hearsay I suppose. That’s great journalism. You hear 1 comment from an attendant that may have had a bad day. That garage parks 1,000 cars a day. I’m willing to bet it’s “down” less than 1% of the time. I think honorable reporting would be to seek out this info and then write your story.
15 Sep 2007 at 07:03 pm | #
Are you still in there? Should I come get you?
15 Sep 2007 at 08:28 pm | #
Oh, good grief. You sound exactly like Brenda Slaby, the baby baker with her “I”, “I”, “I” crap. 2 self centered, narcissisists.
And didn’t you just call yourself the humble Dean the other week during Jeffre’s little do at the club? Humble my foot.
I’d like to give the stranded people a bit more credit. If you hadn’t stuck your nose in their affairs, they would have pushed the help button.
Get over yourself. We already have one “I” Brenda in the area, we don’t need another one!
15 Sep 2007 at 08:30 pm | #
Wow!
Can’t anyone take a joke? Have you people no sense of hyperbole?
15 Sep 2007 at 08:31 pm | #
And comparing me to baby broiling Slaby? Are you kidding me?
15 Sep 2007 at 10:39 pm | #
You really fit in well in Cincinnati, Jason. Cheapest city in the world. The old garage cost $2 to park after 5 and on weekends, no $1. Go to any other city with an active, or even struggling downtown, and see if you can park for less than $3.
And oh, so much trouble. Poor, pitiful Jason. “I had to press a button. It was awful. Oh the trauma. Whatever shall I do? Woe is me.”
Get over it, you spoiled little brat.
15 Sep 2007 at 11:25 pm | #
Anon, I guess you can’t read, because he knows of at least two people that have gotten stuck and I’ve had more tell me the same thing.
The reason this never used to happen is because there were real live people there in the past. So there was no need to panick or deal with help buttons that don’t work.
Ex Librarian, the garage isn’t any better and neither is the square. I’ve heard several people say what a waste of money it was and how it looks worse. They don’t even know how much money the city gave up in annual garage revenue for this scheme. Do you?
16 Sep 2007 at 06:53 pm | #
Whenever the cubicle lackeys make fun of Dean it means the truth must be avoided at all costs. Pretended outrage and “how dare you question the little men behind the curtain” will continue until the Dean of Cincinnati stops asking tough questions. The experts are not concerned about the details. They are busy hoarding property in OTR to control the development with tax dollars. Sorry poor people you must go so they can sterilize the area.
16 Sep 2007 at 09:38 pm | #
I’d like to know when the tough questions are going to start.
What I’ve seen in the line of questioning for council candidates, as an example, have been nothing but bits of pocket lint.
16 Sep 2007 at 10:57 pm | #
Enough about the damn garage! We know you hate it, so stop parking there. Why are you such a glutton for drama? Take the bus next time and avoid all this hassle.
16 Sep 2007 at 11:07 pm | #
This is the same parking system they use at the 7th and Sycamore ‘Automated’ Garage. I laughed when I saw that they decided to use it at Fountain Square, given that it has performed so poorly at the 7th & Sycamore garage.
At 7th & Sycamore, the one prepay machine is located on 7th street, which is inconvenient for anyone coming from 6th street and points south. Worse yet, the prepay machine is almost always broken, so you walk out of your way for nothing.
The alternative is to use the credit card machine at the gate. But those only work about half of the time. I have found that, of four valid credit cards in my wallet, it is consistently ‘unable to read’ three of them, though they are valid cards. The fourth only works if I wait about five seconds after entering my parking ticket.
The whole pay at the gate process takes about 60 seconds, and there is only one lane. So, the poor people with monthly passes have to wait for all of the cash parkers.
On another note, Dean, I read your site frequently, and I don’t always agree with what you have to say. But, you do provide a very good service with your unique insightful articles. I’ve found your evaluations of 3CDC to be very valuable. They have a way of taking credit for things they didn’t influence. For instance, they talk about ‘$70MM in private investment spurred by the square’, and they list several projects in the area. But several of those ‘investments’, such as the condos at the old Gold Star on 4th, and the renovations to 525 Vine, were planned long before the square was planned.
They also fail to take credit for what has gone wrong since they ‘invested’ $42MM of taxpayer dollars. How many establishments have closed since they put downtown under construction? Bella, Pizzaria Uno/Za, Maisonette, Redfish, Mejana, House of Sun, Frisch’s, most of the mall (Talbot’s, Rodger’s Jewlers, Lange Jewlers, New York, Express, etc.) And the Center at 600 Vine is still largely vacant.
17 Sep 2007 at 08:17 am | #
If you’re having trouble swiping your card through a swipe-through reader (as opposed to one where you insert your card) you can put the card inside of a plastic bag - a grocery bag works - and then swipe it with the plastic pulled tight. That can even out the scratches in the magnetic strip and allow a read. Of course, that only works when the reader is functional!
17 Sep 2007 at 09:56 pm | #
The plastic bag thing won’t work. These machines ingest your card, wait, then spit it back out 60 seconds later. It’s not like the credit card swipe terminals at King Kwik or Gold Circle.
Sometimes they won’t even give you an error message, they will just give your card back, leave the gate closed, and not tell you why. One time, when the cash machine was working, I paid my full day $6 fee, went directly to my car, and then exited, but the machine at the exit said I owed another $1. I was going to call my bank and have it charged back just out of principle.
Dean, I noticed today that the Time Warner crawl at the bottom of the big screen on Fountain Square has been replaced with a permanent billboard with three names: 5/3, Macy’s, and Time Warner. Who ever thought the future of Fountain Square would include a permanent billboard?