Swerving into the Pigeonhole

As I was cruising the Internet, I swerved into this item that has been making its way around the car blogs. Through a little digging, here's some info you may not have read. The name for it, the "Pigeonhole" parking lot. It's what you do when you want to park bunches of cars in a small space. Interested in how it worked, read on.

Pigeonhole parking in Portland, Oregon. Not so sure I would want to work at the Texaco booth.

Many times the numbers of cars could be parked with a rampless garage with cars being delivered by an elevator to empty stalls. Here's a simple explanation on how it worked when not plagued by bad electrics.

A customer leaves his car in an entrance lane. He or she may lock it if they wish, as long as they don't set the hand brake. The parking attendant then presses a button which sends a 22-foot steel dolly on rubber wheels under the car. The dolly moves along an steel guide, propelled by a 3-hp electric motor.

When the dolly is under the car, another motor swings two metal arms from a horizontal to vertical position. From either end of the car these arms move towards each other until they press the cars bumpers.

Pressure against the bumpers starts the motor again, and the dolly rolls the car along the track and onto the elevator. The attendant picks an unoccupied space on his control board and selects that space for the elevator. The elevator moves up to the proper floor and the dolly rolls the car into the designated stall stopped when the front wheels rest against a concrete barrier. The two arms then drop to a horizontal position. The car remains in the stall because the floor slopes gradually away from the elevator. To retrieve the car the process is reversed.

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