The new DMV office — open this week after two other Omaha-metro DMV locations closed last week — had no lines over the lunch hour Tuesday.
Last week, officials announced the closure of two DMV offices — the Sarpy County DMV office and the Douglas County DMV office at 50th and F streets.
The DMV wanted to accomplish two major goals with their new location: shorter lines for the public and making their employees lives easier. After just a couple of days, it seems like so far, things are going smoothly.
"Going from excessively long waits in the offices that were staffed with four to five people to basically you walk in, fill out your data form, we get you up to the counter and your finished." says Peggy Havener, district supervisor.
If you happened to be in the new driver licensing office in Bellevue over the past two days, you likely noticed people walking in and out of the building at a fast rate.
"Typically when you go to the DMV, it's like hours of wait. But now it's really fast because they have lots of lanes open," says Scott Henry, DMV customer.
scott henry - dmv customer
"I didn't have to wait no time, I got in, did what I need to do and walked out. It's good," says
Richard Jordan, DMV customer.
That is exactly what the state DMV wanted when they decided to close the south Omaha and Papillion offices, and open up the new spot in Bellevue. District supervisor Peggy Havener says the facility has 16 lanes and plenty of workers so they shouldn't run into the same problems they did at the old offices.
"So when an examiner would go on a lunch break it would cripple the office because we tend to get busier over lunch."
The DMV led 11 new employees when they made the change, which led to less stress for everyone.
"It's a more relaxed feel now because there's obviously more of them to assist the customers when they come in and so far the reaction from the public has been mainly positive."
Havener says the DMV hopes to have license renewal customers getting in and out of the building in less than 15 minutes.
