Free Parking

A story in yesterday’s Seattle Times detailed how the Port of Seattle missed out on collecting almost $400,000 in revenue from the SeaTac Airport parking garage because of credit-card charges that were never processed. So far some 10,500 people have parked there for free. Buried in the article’s online comments was a nugget about how to continue to get free parking.

With the disclaimer that I have no idea whether this works, here is what one reader wrote:

Not many people know this but pressing a garage door opener will cause the lane arm to raise. We never pay for parking.

None of the other reader comments followed up on this bombshell. Most bashed the Port for mismanagement of taxpayer money, a frequent theme in the generally unfavorable coverage the Port gets in the Seattle Times. The reason I skimmed the comments was to look for additional dirt on the Port. I wasn’t trying to learn how to get free parking at the SeaTac Airport parking garage because I never park there. At $28/day, I think the long-term parking rates are exorbitant.

In fact, in Walking to SeaTac, I wrote about how I have been parking at the satellite commercial parking lots along International Boulevard for years.

Back to the reader comment. What would make him (or her) try something like that? While almost every driver, myself included, keeps their garage door remote in the car, what combination of boredom, curiosity, and larcenous behavior would make someone point the remote at a random lane arm and click it? Shazam! I would probably be too surprised and too dumb to roll through before the arm went back down.

Besides aren’t there security cameras just about everywhere money changes hands these days? While security footage might not clearly show you clicking the remote, the time-stamp on a license plate photo, if they take one, would be accurate enough to match it to an uncompensated lane opening. But if so, you could plead guilty to taking advantage of malfunctioning equipment and pay the parking charge when the Port mailed it to you.

As I said I don’t know whether this works. Or whether it is applicable to other self-serve parking garages. It could be like the largely debunked urban legend I read about a couple of years ago that described how to ride an elevator without stopping at each floor. I still haven’t tried that one. And while I don’t have any plans to park at the airport garage anytime soon unless the cell-phone lot is full when I’m picking up an arriving passenger, it might be fun to try the lane-arm tip.