Let’s Not Allow Parking Structures to Fail Twice

* How is it that we can send people to the moon but we can’t seem to design a safe parking lot? Going to our favorite mall used to be fun. Now we wonder if we can get out alive before the parking structure comes crashing down on our heads.

We’re in this spot because our structural design standards appear to favor cost rather than safety. Maybe we need to consider the people aspect and go back to first design principles.

Some of the seismic results quoted in recent Times news articles indicated, among other things, that the earth moved back and forth several inches during the quake.

Assume that the earth moves back and forth about three inches and that this shaking occurs at about two times a second. The resultant side force applied to a typical building would be more than the weight of the whole building! That’s a pretty high load, and even the proverbial brick outhouse would have trouble standing up to it. I seriously doubt that present-day parking structures have anywhere near this strength capability. And so they fall down, smashing everything and every person inside.

It would be tragic to ignore such dire effects when new parking structures are approved by the Building and Safety Department.

Let’s not allow our parking structures to fail twice. They might be full of people next time.

THOMAS C. POLLACK

Sun Valley