THANKLESS BUT NEEDED
Spotlight on lot attendants
SaskTel Centre patrons see them at nearly every sporting event or concert. Whether it’s 30 C above or -30, the parking lot attendants are there guiding drivers to the closest available spot.
But not everyone is willing to take direction from the attendants. According to SaskTel Centre staff, that is how traffic backups and time delays occur.
“We’ve had people jump curbs in front; we’ve had people intimidate us with their vehicles, rev their engines,” said Owen Ebner, traffic manager at SaskTel Centre. “We’ve had people make U-turns and knock down all our barricades and cones.
“It happens more than just the odd occasion.”
Ebner, a former officer with the Saskatoon Police Service, is quick to point out it’s a small minority of people who create issues. But complaints are common.
“People get very upset with us because they feel they can park wherever they want and we shouldn’t be able to tell them where to park,” he says.
“The most common complaint is, ‘I don’t want to park here. I want to get closer to the building,’ ‘I can’t walk. I don’t have my disabled sticker with me but I broke my leg,’ although he doesn’t have a cast. We get them all.”
And people taking the time to complain adds to the delay.
“If we’re dealing with 6,000 cars and everybody delays for 10 seconds, that’s an hour,” said John Howden, director of business development at SaskTel Centre.
Safety for workers and the public is a top priority for SaskTel Centre staff.
“We’re trying to get traffic in and out of SaskTel Centre for events as quickly but as safely as possible for both the motorists and, of course, the parking attendants,” said Ebner. “They have to realize we are out there on icy roads or on gravel. Footing isn’t the best so we’re trying to have people slow down.”
SaskTel Centre has four different parking plans depending on the crowd size and whether the event has shuttle buses.
“We’ve refined (the parking plan) over 10 years — and in the last couple years, with Garth Brooks and the Rush, we’ve really taken a hard look at it and brought in some folks from the city traffic engineering department on that,” said Howden.
“The plan we have in place is really to utilize what we have in the best way possible to get fans in and out. And we do track everything.”
SaskTel Centre has worked with the city in recent years to help keep traffic flowing during big events.
“We’ve been able to add some additional traffic lights. (City workers) reprogram those lights for our events so that on the ingress, the turning signal lights are longer so we can keep that flow going and on the out, it’s the opposite,” said Howden.
“We’re creating a situation where we’re doing longer pulls of traffic trying to keep the flow moving as best we can.”
For larger events there are three police officers on-site when patrons arrive and one officer for when patrons leave.
“We’ve had a couple of instances where police have been involved because people have either come close to driving into our parking attendants or they jumped curbs and they completely disregard our orders to leave that area. We’ve had two or three individuals who were charged and on followup were fined substantially for their actions.”
On a night when the Rush play, SaskTel Centre will have up to 50 parking attendants available, a considerable cost for a facility that provides free parking for events.
“Most other places you go to of this size or this type of facility, you have to pay to park,” said Ebner.
And what would be the consequences of not having parking attendants?
“It would be bedlam. The first few fans would be OK, but once the backups started ... People would be parked in aisleways, roadways, double parking. The bus people wouldn’t know where to go, you’d have taxis everywhere. It would be chaos for sure,” said Howden. “(Exiting) would be a lot worse. Everyone wants to leave in the same 15-minute window.”
“It would be complete chaos,” added Ebner. “Even now when the event starts, we have some people that come late — and a lot of our parking attendants are now already in — and they’re driving around aimlessly for 15 or 20 minutes trying to find a spot close
If we’re dealing with 6,000 cars and everybody delays for 10 seconds, that’s an hour.
to the building.”
Howden stresses co-operating with the parking attendants is the best way to keep traffic moving.
“We just ask that everyone coming to the events obeys the traffic signage and management plan that we have in place, that they respect our parking attendants and follow along with the directions they are given. We’re putting them as close to the building as we can given the plan that we have.”
“We need a little co-operation from the people coming here and have them understand sometimes (the attendants) aren’t all that happy and they want to go in and warm up,” said Ebner.
“If people feel we are being a little short with them, try to understand they’ve been out here a long time and they are tired of telling people that they should be doing one thing and the people want to do another.”