Project Introduction
This project requirement is to design a parking lot for the Saguaro National Park. The engineering team is working with the National Forest Service, more specifically park representative Rich Goepfrich, to provide a new design for their Loma Alta Trailhead parking area.
Project Background
The parking lot is located off of S Camino Loma Alta at its most northern point. The current parking lot holds about at most 8 sedan sized vehicles, which is not adequate for the amount of foot traffic this trailhead encounters. The current lot is surrounded by shrubs, cacti, and rocks. The lot neighbors private land on its western border which the team cannot design on. The east boundary is the national park and cannot also, be designed on.
Project Objectives
The objectives for the client are to design a larger parking lot to maximize visitor parking stalls as well as provide adequate area for vehicles with trailers to maneuver around and park. When designing the parking lot, three different material options will be given to the client to choose from. The material options being gravel, asphalt, and Portland cement. Along with improving the parking lot area, the team also has to check that the drainage of the new constructed site doesn’t cause problems for the surrounding area, especially since the change in material changes the amount of runoff created during rainstorms.
The figures seen below is a visual showing the trailhead parking lot within Arizona. This image is a snapshot of the middle of the state of Arizona to show the location of the project site in reference to other parts of the state, mainly Phoenix since that is the state capitol. The image clearly conveys that the project site is in the southern part of Arizona.