FasTrak FAIL – trapped in the SFO parking garage

Using FasTrak seemed like such a good idea at the time. It wasn’t.

The central parking garage at San Francisco International Airport now accepts FasTrak, the RFID-based system that lets you pay bridge tolls without stopping. FasTrak is a wonderful thing when crossing the Bay Area’s bridges. It’s clearly not ready for broader deployment.

Last night, we were picking someone up at SFO. I pulled into the short-term central parking garage at SFO, and stopped at the entry gate. There were big signs urging use of FasTrak to pay. We have FasTrak, so it sounded like a good idea. I held the FasTrak RFID device up to the windshield. The device beeped. The gate opened. Into the parking lot we drove.

About an hour later, we were ready to leave. Alas, it was a Hotel California moment.

I drove up to the first-level parking lot exit, and selected the FasTrak lane. I held the FasTrak device up to the windshield. The device beeped. The gate stayed closed.

Waved the FasTrak around. It beeped again. The gate stayed closed. Rinse. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. The gate stayed closed.

Meanwhile, there’s a long line of cars behind me… some honking. I noticed that there was a car next to me in another exit lane — and the driver was also waving around a FasTrak device. The driver and I looked at each. We sighed.

I pushed the “call” button at the exit gate. After five minutes of “ringing” sounds, a guy answered. “The sensor is having trouble reading your FasTrak,” he said. “Back up and pull forward again.” “But it beeped,” I said. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Back up and pull forward again.”

I backed up — slowly — as the line of cars behind me also backed up. Then pulled forward again. The FasTrak device beeped. The gate stayed closed.

Pushed the call button again. The guy answered after a few minutes. “FasTrak is down,” he said. “Come up to the attendant at the second-floor exit.”

I backed up again (as cars scatter to let me out), and then drove up to the second floor. Went to the one exit lane that had a human attendant. It was the same guy I talked to — he was apparently the only human on duty. It took him several minutes to override the system to let me out.

Total time to leave the parking lot was more than 20 minutes from when we first pulled up to the first-level exit. What a complete and utter nuisance.

Here’s the FasTrak announcement of the SFO parking-lot service. Good luck with that. From now on, I’m sticking to cash or credit cards.