Williams College is building a driveway entrance to the first floor of its parking garage so motorists don't have to drive down the often icy exterior ramp to exit the structure.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College is rerouting traffic into the first floor of the three-level, 89,000 square foot parking deck behind the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance.

 

Representatives of the college appeared before the town's Planning Board last month to explain the need for the project, which will enable cars to use all three decks year round.

 

"The center tier of the parking deck is largely unusable in the winter because of icing conditions on the ramp," college attorney Jamie Art told the board. "The electrical de-icing system has been broken. ... There's not a lot of confidence that replacing the electrical heating system will avoid the current situation recurring in a few years."

 

The deck's existing traffic flow brings all users through the entrance on the third floor at the north end of the structure. Motorists drive down a circular ramp that connects the three levels and leave via a driveway that exits onto North Street.

 

The failed heating system is supposed to keep the ramp ice free; without the heating element, the ramp becomes dangerously slick in the winter.

 

"Most garages have covered ramps," said Shaun Garvey, a project manager in the college's Facilities Office. "If you look up standard designs for parking structures, this one doesn't follow any of them."

 

The parking deck was built in 2002.

 

"The ramps are so steep that the feedback I'm getting from folks at the college is that even when [the heating system] was working at its best it wasn't adequate. It would melt what's on the surface, but what would build up on the side from plowing would overcome the melting system.

 

"It doesn't take much of a patch of ice for you to lose control and end up in the wall."

 

The new driveway currently under construction follows the path of an previously existing walkway from a pedestrian exit.

 

The college plans to have the driveway in place and the new vehicular entrance operational by the end of November, Art told the Planning Board.