ForConstructionPros.com

Executing a basic parking lot layout is old hat to many striping contractors, but that's only true when the layout and design are straightforward, the lot can be squared up, and there's enough time in the schedule to make sure it all gets done right.

But when those elements aren't in place, and the project goes from challenging to darn near impossible, how do you get it done? That's the question Vinny Toth, owner of V&V Line Striping, Boonton, NJ, asked himself last year after he was awarded the striping on a redesigned layout of a parking lot at Six Flags Great Adventure. The repair and sealcoating job, done by Advanced Pavement Technologies (and profiled in the March/April 2006 Pavement) was fraught with its own pitfalls, but the whole reason for the sealcoating job was to redesign the layout. The park's engineers needed to add an additional 1,000 parking spaces—despite having taken a bite out of the parking area with the footprint for a new roller coaster.

"When we bid it we planned on creating a nice square and laying out the parking within that square," Toth says. "We could have done that but we would have lost parking spaces and they couldn't afford to do that. So after I saw the layout they needed, I said to myself, ‘Now that I've got this, how are we going to do it? And how are we going to do it in such a tight time frame?'

"Most jobs are consistent with themselves," Toth says. "On this job nothing was consistent and nothing was square. Each part of the lot was different all the way across. Six Flags wanted one drive lane, with one-way traffic, but not even like a wishbone.

Some angles were 30 degrees, some were 45 and some were even 40 degrees. That's what made it so difficult. If you have it square and you have 45 degree angles throughout and it's consistent over 10 rows you can snap a line right across and it's pretty easy to lay out." Toth says. "But Six Flags couldn't afford to lose any spaces so we had to lay out each and every row differently."