Why is it that here in Malaysia, there’s just no thought put into things like carparks? Many malls have gotten it right, but too often there are problems that should have been identified by the architechs at an early stage. I mean, these guys are paid professionals, right?
So, in the last 2 days, we’ve encountered 2 hotels with problems. The first was Hotel Jen, in Puteri Harbour, Johor. The Hotel itself was fine. But the car park had this design flaw that led to streams of drivers having to turn themselves around. It happened to me, the car in front of me, and 5 other cars when I went to take photos. They even had to deploy a member of staff at one point. A simple signboard would have saved a tonne of manpower.
See, you’d come to this junction where you could either turn right to exit/go a floor down or go straight where there was more parking.
Naturally, a few drivers would want to see if a spot was free this way.
There’s even a bunch of green arrows indicating you’re clear to proceed that way. Not a single dead end warning sign. What happens is you go straight on through to the end and turn right.
And almost immediately turn right again.
Only to end up looking at this. About a dozen car park lots and some motor cycle parking lots followed by some plastic barriers.
The staff are clearly aware of this situation, and there are printed out speed warnings throughout the carpark, so what’s stopping them from printing out a warning about this dead end?
The hotel car park isn’t at full capacity, which is why the congestion and inconvenience isn’t seen as a problem just yet.
Earlier today, just before preparing this very story, we found a similar, but not as serious problem at the Sheraton, PJ.
This one’s almost literally straightforward. There was space for two more bays at a little corner of the carpark, but because there’s a pedestrian path taking up a large chunk of space, it’s a one way. So you can check in any time you want, but you can never leave without breaking the logical path setup by the planners.
I understand, it’s private property so the rules don’t really apply as strictly. But there needs to be some consistency so users know who has right of way. That path is wide enough to accomodate 2 cars, So why not design it in a way that doesn’t make it look like a one way, dead end street? It just looks like problem waiting to happen.
