My long-time readers probably recall my other post about my experiences with parking on Lehigh’s campus. What follows here is a series of email correspondence between myself and the parking & transportation services of the University. As I continue to receive responses, I will be editing this to include them.
| From: Sharon Kay R Field |
| To: [Lehigh mailing list] |
| Date: 2006-04-11 15:13 |
| Subject: BULLETIN: Reserved Parking – Brodhead & Packer – 4/12 & 4/14/06 |
Additional spaces located directly across from the current Admissions Visitor Spaces will be reserved for prospective students & their parents attending Lehigh Life Days scheduled for Wednesday, 4/12/06 and Friday, 4/14/06.
These spaces will be marked: Reserved for Admissions Visitor only.
Thanks for your cooperation.
| From: Chad Hogg |
| To: Sharon Kay R Field |
| Date: 2006-04-11 15:31 |
| Subject: Re: BULLETIN: Reserved Parking – Brodhead & Packer – 4/12 & 4/14/06 |
Is it going to be February soon? Not having anywhere to park is really starting to get annoying, and I know that the new garage is going to be finished by February so faculty and staff will have parking when prospective students come for spring visits.
“The new arrival cour at the Alumni Memorial building, as well as a 317-space parking garage adjacent to it, will temporarily remove 61 currently existing faculty/staff and 23 visitor spaces from our parking inventory. The connection of Brodhead Avenue to University Drive/Eighth Street will consume the 25 on-street parking spaces on either side of Brodhead Avenue from Summit Street South. We hope to have the Brodhead Avenue construction completed by mid October and the parking deck ready for use by February 2006.”
| From: Christopher J. Christian |
| To: Chad Hogg |
| Date: 2006/04/12 01:12 |
| Subject: Parking |
That was a mis print. It should have said February 2007!
Hey, we can only tell you what we’re told. Sometimes construction delays are unavoidable. I’m at home right now so I cant access all of our systems and dont know your year. If you’re not a senior, I’m quite confident that next year (for the fall) things will return to somewhat normal, even better, considering we’ll have and additional 200 spaces!
Thanks for your patience and understanding.
Chris
Chris Christian
Director
Transportation & Parking Services
| From: Chad Hogg |
| To: Christopher J. Christian |
| Date: 2006-04-12 12:45 |
| Subject: Re: Parking |
On 4/12/06, Christropher J. Christian wrote:
That was a mis print. It should have said February 2007!
I don’t mean to be antagonistic, but I have a hard time believing this. Consider the evidence against it:
An email from Mark R. Ironside to the entire Lehigh community, dated 2005-05-11 states the projected finishing date of “by February 2006″.
An email from Mark R. Ironside to the entire Lehigh community, dated 2005-05-19 states that “the Alumni Memorial Building Faculty/Staff parking lot will be closed until February of next year, when the garage project is completed.” [Note that "next year" in this case refers to 2006.]
An email from Mark R. Ironside to the entire Lehigh community, dated 2005-05-26 with the same statement as the previous email.
An email from Mark R. Ironside to the entire Lehigh community, dated 2005-06-05 with the statement “It [Alumni Memorial] will remain closed until February of 2006, when the garage project is completed.”
The blurb that appears when one clicks on that region of the map at http://www.lehighevents.net/campus/, which states “The garage and arrival court are scheduled to be completed in January / February of 2006.”
A post on http://lehighcampus.blogspot.com dated 2005-07-26, which states “… until the new parking garage on Brodhead Avenue is open (February 2006)” and later “As mentioned earlier, the garage will be open around February 06.”
( If this is merely a typographical error, it has been repeated dozens of times by different people and in different media without being noticed and corrected by anyone. )
A post on http://lehighcampus.blogspot.com dated 2006-04-10, which states finish dates of May 1, July 1, and September 1 for different aspects of the parking garage project. If the initial date it was to be finished was February 2007, then this is way ahead of schedule.
There is no way a simple building project such as this one should take 18 months. That it would be scheduled to occur over such a long time period seems very odd.
Hey, we can only tell you what we’re told. Sometimes construction delays are unavoidable. I’m at home right now so I cant access all of our systems and dont know your year. If you’re not a senior, I’m quite confident that next year (for the fall) things will return to somewhat normal, even better, considering we’ll have and additional 200 spaces!
Now this is what bothers me. If it was supposed to be finished in February 2007, why would you write anything about unavoidable delays? This would seem to indicate that you are well aware that February 2006 was not a misprint.
Thanks for your patience and understanding.
Sorry, there was a time when I had patience and understanding for this process, but that time is past. When I was ticketed for parking in a visitor space while every faculty/staff spot on lower campus was full and 90% of the visitor spaces were empty my patience gave way to frustration.
| From: Chris Christian |
| To: Chad Hogg |
| Date: 2006-04-12 14:52 |
| Subject: Re: Parking |
It was my attempt at humor! You are, in fact, ABSOLUTELY CORRECT! My real points are that we can only pass along the information we are told and that we would have been happier if the facility was opened in February as planned. I can tell you that the opening is getting closer!
Well, I suppose that will be the end of our conversation. I am not entirely sure I buy the “humor” rather than “lie” explanation, but I have been known to be a bit dense. In any case, I had several other people look over this and none of them picked up on any sarcasm. Now I should probably get back to actual work! If anyone can tell me from the HTML source why this paragraph is appearing in larger text, I would appreciate it.
