PATS to fix lights in Collins Boulevard Parking Garage

For several weeks, the rooftop parking lot of the Collins Boulevard Parking Garage has been in the dark.

It wasn’t until last week that Parking and Transportation Services (PATS) noticed the rooftop lights for the garage were not working.

PATS Director Manuel Lopez said in an interview with The Oracle that the light switch needs to be replaced.

“The lights come on and off,” he said. “What we have been doing is, when we see that they go off, we play with it. We tweak with it and they come on.”

Lopez said the necessary parts to fix the switch were ordered last week from Tamco Electric Inc. He said he hopes they arrive by the end of the week.

“In the meantime, it’s a manual kind of thing,” he said. “It lasts a while, but eventually they go off and we go back and tweak them again … but how long they are going to stay on, or how often they are going to go off, I can’t tell you that.”

One maintenance employee is assigned to keep an eye on the lights in the meantime, Lopez said. However, he said students should move their cars elsewhere at night, as the broken lights pose safety concerns.

“The rest of the garage is empty in the evening,” Lopez said. “You can park on any of the other floors, and since students can park out of an assigned area, they can park anywhere.”

He said it is not uncommon for lights to go out in parking garages, but couldn’t estimate how often it happens.

“Lights go on and off, but we stay on top of that,” he said. “The lights are basically burning constantly, so you will always have some of that.”

– Reporting by Diedra Rodriguez

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