Glossary of Parking Lot Maintenance Terms (Relating To Striping)

Glossary

• Aisle, Traffic: A portion of a parking facility used for vehicle travel to and from stalls, or between street, stalls, and building(s) served.

• Aisle, Pedestrian: Those portions of a parking facility reserved exclusively for pedestrian use; also the other routes normally used by pedestrians between stalls and buildings. Exclusive-use pedestrian aisles typically are protected routes such as raised walkways and designated controlled lanes between or across rows of stalls. Nonexclusive pedestrian aisles include routes coinciding with traffic aisles.

• Angle of Parking: The angle (in degrees) between the line delineating the side of a stall and a line at the top of the stalls and parallel to the traffic aisle served by the stalls.

• Berm: A raised asphalt concrete curb-like bumper. Intended only for marking edges of an area; is not strong enough to deflect a straying vehicle.

• Controlled Parking: Permit parking, validated parking, pay parking, parking restricted to employees only, and other parking that is not for the free use of the general public.

• Capacity: The number of vehicles a parking area holds within designated stalls; or gross vehicle weight in parking structure/parking deck.

• Dead Area: A portion of a parking facility not usable for parking lot striping stalls or traffic aisles. Dead areas may be used for pedestrian aisles, lighting, landscaping, or other improvements.

• Delineation: Line marking.

• Density: The number of vehicles per area of given size. May be used to compare one parking facility’s capacity efficiency with another’s.

• Depth, Stall: The distance (at right angles to the traffic aisle) from the top of a stall to its traffic aisle edge.

• Double Row: Two single rows forming a unit. A double row is normally located in the interior area of a parking facility, where it forms an island between traffic aisles. Usually the two single rows are adjacent and vehicles in one single row are separated from those in the other by painted central division lines. Sometimes a pedestrian aisle or other physical barrier provides the separation.

• Double-Loaded Traffic Aisle: A traffic aisle with accessible stalls on both sides.

• Egress: Exiting.

• Entrance; Exit: An area used for vehicle ingress/ egress from a parking facility. Usually located on public property and connecting with a street or road.

• Esthetics: Considerations of attractiveness and good taste.

• Exit; Entrance: An area used for vehicle egress/ingress to a parking facility. Usually located on public property and connecting with a street or road.

• Ingress: Entering.

• Layout: The placement of stalls, aisles, fixtures, and improvements within a parking facility.

• Ninety-Degree Parking: Head-in or rear-in parking in which the vehicle body is at right angles to a line across the top of the row of stalls.

• Overhang: The distance from the striking face of a wheel stop to the property line or wall. Similarly, a vehicle would extend this distance over a curb.

• Overlap: The distance gained at the centerline of a double row of vehicles where the alternate traffic aisles are intended for vehicle traffic in opposite directions.

• Parallel Aisles: Two or more aisles which run in the same direction. For example, if two aisles both run east and west, they are parallel.

• Parking Angle: The angle (in degrees) between the line delineating the side of a stall and a line at the top of the parking lot striping stalls and parallel to the traffic aisle served by the stalls.

• Pedestrian Aisle: Those portions of a parking facility reserved exclusively for pedestrian use; also the other routes normally used by pedestrians between stalls and buildings. Exclusive-use pedestrian aisles typically are protected routes such as raised walkways and designated controlled lanes between or across rows of stalls. Nonexclusive pedestrian aisles include routes coinciding with traffic aisles.

• Permit Parking: Parking in which authorized users possess permits.

• Seal Coating: A coating which seals a pavement’s surface.

• Single Row: A row of adjacent stalls. Usually located on the perimeter of a parking facility.

• Single-Loaded Traffic Aisle: A traffic aisle with accessible stalls on only one side.

• Stacked Parking: Parking in which the first-in vehicle in a given chain of vehicles may not be removed without first moving one or more later arriving vehicles in the chain. Used to increase capacity in a parking facility where space is at a premium.

• Stall: A portion of a parking facility designed to hold one vehicle, and marked, usually by lines painted on pavement, for that purpose.

• Stall Depth: The distance (at right angles to the traffic aisle) from the top of a stall to its traffic aisle edge.

• Stall Width: The distance between the two side lines of a stall, measured at right angles to the two lines.

• Traffic Aisle: A portion of a parking facility used for vehicle travel to and from stalls, or between street, stalls, and building(s) served.

• Traffic Flow: The pattern of traffic movement through an area or through a parking facility.

• Turnover: The number of vehicles which use a given space of facility in a given time period.

• Validated Parking: Parking in which a user’s parking ticket must receive an official stamp to waive parking fees.

• Wall to Wall Dimension: The distance (passing across a traffic aisle at right angles to the aisle) from the farther end of a vehicle parked on one side of the traffic aisle to the farther end of a vehicle parked on the other side.

• Wheel Bumper: A block installed at the end of a parking stall to provide tactile identification of the end of the stall when the driver feels his wheel contact the block.

• Width, Stall: The distance between the two side lines of a stall, measured at right angles to the two lines.

This in an incomplete list of parking lot striping terms. This list will continue to grow over time. If you have suggestions for terms to add please feel free to comment or E-mail me.

Last week Trueline Striping was hired to place some new handicaps on a large parking lot of a church in Los Angeles. This is a typical parking lot striping job that we preform in Southern California for parking lot managers and parking lot owners every day.

Other services we offer include:

• Seal Coating
• Asphalt Patching
• Pressure Washing
• Warehouse Striping
• Sandblasting
• Traffic sign and pole installations
• Truncated domes
• plus many more.

If you have an upcoming parking lot striping or parking lot maintenance project coming up soon and would like up to provide you with a bid for no charge, please feel free to give us a call.

Now that the holiday season has officially begun, it may be time to start thinking about how you can make your parking garage better. During the holiday season, more people are taking the roads, in order to go shopping as well as to go to visit relatives, than during any other time of the year, making it important that you have your parking garage set up as ideally as you possibly can. For instance, ask yourself how long it’s been since your parking lot striping has been done?

Parking lot striping is very important when it comes to a parking garage. It is the parking lot striping that helps your customers to know where, exactly, they are supposed to park. It is the parking lot striping that lets people know where they are supposed to park their vehicle, and it is parking lot striping that allows them to park their car easily without having to worry about hitting other vehicles. If it’s been a year or longer since you’ve had your parking lot striping done, it’s time to get it done again. You can have it done during the slow time of your business, so that your parking garage can look beautiful during the busy shopping season.

Today is a day when we give thanks – not only to our friends and family, but also to those who make our lives better. We at Trueline.net would like to thank you, our customers and friends. We enjoy our business and couldn’t do it without you contacting us and asking us to help you to fulfill the vision that you have of your parking lot, warehouse, parking garage, or even of your home (curb painting). We are always glad to help and love to be challenged every day, as it keeps our jobs interesting.

So, a big Happy Thanksgiving coming from all of us here at Trueline.net to all of you, including those we know and hold dear, and those that we haven’t yet had the pleasure to meet. As the holiday season begins, we hope that you’re able to enjoy time with your friends and family this holiday season.

Have you thought about the animals outside of your company? Some commercial businesses don’t think about pets, and focus only on the human traffic that they get. But, if you’ve got pedestrian traffic coming into your store, chances are that you’ve got people who would want to bring their pets with them. People love their animals, and dogs are especially fun to walk. If you don’t have a place for your customer’s dog to rest at, you may be missing out on some potential customers and losing money. How can you welcome animals to your store without actually bringing them into your store?

One way to do it is to use parking lot striping to help you to create a doggie parking lot. There are a number of doggie parking apparatuses that you can purchase and place outside of your business. These apparatuses allow people to literally park their dogs outside of the building by providing places to tie the leashes. The next time you have your parking lot striping done, you can then choose to mark down the area on the sidewalk where your dogs are, allowing your customers, and the dogs to be extremely happy.

Let’s talk about Black Friday for a moment. If you’re a commercial business, Black Friday is likely your favorite time of year – and also your busiest. Black Friday can be worry some for any business, no matter how organized you are, simply because it is something that is so crazy and wonderful at the same time. You can’t predict how many people you’ll get, and you can’t predict how insane the traffic will be. It may be too late now to prepare for Black Friday by changing around your parking lot striping, but it’s never too late to get ready for next year.

How can parking lot striping help you to prepare for Black Friday? Easily. First of all, you may be misusing the room you’ve got in your parking lot right now. If you can fit in a dozen more cars safely, you will be making more room for people who are coming to shop for Black Friday. Next, take a look at your pedestrian traffic markings. Are there any? The more you’ve got marked down, and the easier it is to understand, the smoother the traffic, both pedestrian and automobile, will flow, making Black Friday a bit calmer.

Are you looking for a unique Christmas gift that you can give someone? If you know someone who owns a business, one gift that you can give them is parking lot striping! It may sound a bit out of the box, but those are the best types of presents! Here’s how you can do it – first, contact a parking lot striping company that has competitive prices and that has a good reputation. Then, have them give you a free quote so that you can see how much money you’re talking about before you hire them on the spot.

It’s best if you can do this part when the owner of the property, the gift recipient, isn’t there, as he/she being there would ruin the surprise. If the amount suggested by the parking lot striping company is agreeable to you, explain that you want to give it as a gift and set up an agreement with the striping company. You may not be able to set up the exact date, but you can get something written down that you can give to the property owner so that they will know what you’ve given them for Christmas.

If your reading this, its probably for one of a few reasons.

1.) You want to more information about local parking lot striping companies.

2.) You are interested in obtaining information or a price for your next parking lot maintenance project.

Either way, you came to the right place! At Trueline Striping, we try and provide people with all the tools they need to get their answers quickly. If you need a parking lot striping project quoted, just click on one of these links and it will take you to our main web site. If you need information about the industry, feel free to browse through our blog for topics and subjects that interest you. Also, if you have a suggestion on something to cover let us know and we will try to accommodate you!

Lots of property owners try to figure out if they should get their line striping done during the winter months or if they should wait until the spring months come again. If you were living and had a business in the northern part of the country, you would have to worry about frost heaves and other inconvenient forces of nature. Fortunately, parking lot striping in Los Angeles and the surrounding area isn’t as much of a big deal. The frost heaves aren’t anywhere near as much of a worry as they are in the northern part of the country, and there’s actually a number of reasons why it is a good idea to get your striping done in the winter months rather than in the summer.

While it’s nice to have your parking lot striping done in the summer months as well, having the lines freshened up during the winter months allows you to cater to the holiday shoppers and also gives you the ability to have your parking lot looking spiffy in the spring when the weather starts to warm up again. You’re also much more likely to find a good deal on your striping, if you contact a striper in the winter rather than in the summer.

Higher Standards.

In one phrase, this is how we define our company vs. the dozens of other parking lot striping companies people have to choose from. At Trueline Striping, we strive to find  customers who challenge us and keep are standards for quality and service above par. We know an ideal striping company is one that focuses on one industry only. By doing this, we have created an accurate striping system that has earned prestige and reputation. For over 18 years, we have been striving towards becoming the leading authority in the parking lot striping industry. We know this doesn’t mean that we don’t have problems, but the difference between the the best company and a mediocre company is the way they handle those problems. At Trueline, we honestly believe that our customers are partners. We know that by solving there problems, we become a valuable tool to them that they are likely to use again and again. When we make the commitment to an account, we make sure that the resources are there to handle that accounts parking lot striping needs year round and not just when its slow. Whether you are in charge of one property or thirty properties, we can help you manage your portfolio. Below is a small sample of customer types, we manage on a yearly basis.

• Malls
• Parking Garages
• School Districts
• Shopping Centers
• Industrial Parks
• Private Owned Properties
• Fast Food & Restaurant Chains
• Hospitals
• Plus many more.

If you have a need for parking lot striping anywhere between Ventura County to San Diego County,  please feel free to give us a call and ask for a estimator. 1 (800) 603-1116 in Southern California.