Can anyone explain this?
We went to a ballgame today (go Red Wings!) and saw this sign at the parking garage:
Can anyone tell me how much it costs to park for, say, 4 hours?
Update 6/5: The next time we went to a game, we noticed that they had a new sign up at the ticket booth giving exactly the minutes and prices that Joel gave in the comments below. Good call, Joel!
Tags: parking
May 14, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Not sure how that works, but can you call hockey a “ball”game?
May 14, 2008 at 3:17 pm
This is for the Rochester (NY) Red Wings, a AAA club for the Minnesota Twins, not the Detroit Red Wings, who are on their way to the Stanley Cup. And I’m also not sure how it works.
May 14, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I’ll give it a shot.
1-60 minutes: $0
61-120 minutes: $2 total cost
121-180 minutes: $3 total cost
181-240 minutes: $4 total cost
With the inclusion of “FLAT RATE” to entice customers into thinking they are getting something special. Though I would like the context of the previous rates which may explain why it was important to point out that a one-condition-only price was a “flat rate”. As my English major friends say, “context is everything.”
May 14, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Hmm. Perhaps they didn’t want to use the words piecewise function?
I agree with Joel’s cost analysis.
May 15, 2008 at 4:59 am
OK, so it’s $1 per hour (or part of an hour) except that if you stay less than an hour, the total is waived.
What confused me was the second line: a flat rate of $2 after the first hour seemed initially to imply that anything after the first hour was $2 (a flat FEE, as it were). And my next reading was that the $2 was a fee, like a y-initercept, but that the “Each additional hour” referred to the hours after the first hour because the second hour was never mentioned directly. This suggested the following:
1-60 minutes: $0
61-120 minutes: $3 total cost
121-180 minutes: $4 total cost
181-240 minutes: $5 total cost
But Joel, I think your explanation is more likely to be correct (because it has a smaller jump).
Jackie: Indeed.
May 15, 2008 at 6:06 am
I stumbled on
http://rochesterdowntown.com/downloads/rochester-parkingmap.pdf just now. They describe the parking fees for that garage as
which is a far clearer way of communicating it than their sign uses.
I’ll also note that at some lots in the city, they charge a “flat daily rate”, that is a fixed fee for the entire day regardless of the length of time you park. So maybe in the photo the “flat rate of $2″ is intended to communicate the fact that the rate doesn’t change from 61 to 120 minutes (i.e. they round time UP).
Or maybe they want drivers to see “Flat rate $2″ and think they’re getting a bargain by local standards.
May 19, 2008 at 2:26 pm
The real question is…Where is this parking?
I paid 5 bucks for a couple hours last time I was as the redwings game=)
even though I am a true Buffalo Bisons fan!!!
May 19, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Nice Avatar PlusC!
We had to pay a set fee of $4 during the game because it was “Special Event” parking — which is why we couldn’t figure out the sign just from what we paid (it’s the garage right across from Frontier Field).
June 5, 2008 at 5:31 pm
[...] packing problems, the idea is to minimize unused space. Our local garage (the same one that had the confusing sign) has decided to utilize this idea by making use of space that would otherwise be wasted. At the end [...]