In the three days Williamsport’s Midtown Parking Deck has been in operation 1,020 vehicles have made use of it with what Charles A. Szybist, executive director of the Williamsport Parking Authority last night termed, “a high degree of success.”

The daily breakdown was: Saturday, 540, Friday, 404 and Thursday, (from 1p.m. to 10 p.m.) 76.
At present, the partly completed structure is only utilizing 197 of the planned 320 spaces until the third floor deck is completed.

The closest the garage came to being filled was Friday evening when the parking counters registered 190 cars parked at one time.

According to Mr. Szybist, a number of those using the facility remarked on the ease of parking and convenience to downtown stores provided by the facility.

Most of the parkers, he said, were cash customers rather than park-and-shop customers. The park-and-shop plan utilizes stamps given by participating merchants with their purchases.

However, Mr. Szybist noted that this trend should change as more merchants join the park-and-shop program.

As for the overall operation, Mr. Szybist said there have been few problems, most have to do with the garage being incomplete at this time.

Perhaps the biggest problem in the successful operation of the garage appears to outsiders to be the movement of traffic in and out of the garage.

It was reported on Friday night traffic was tied up for some time on William Street when a large number of cars began to leave the garage at the same time.

Some of the confusion on William Street was expected because the street had been a one-way street north for quite some time. The city converted the street to two-way traffic on Thursday when the garage was opened.

Compiled by Lou Hunsinger Jr.