It’s one thing when Carectomy looks at the impact of pavement and parking spaces on society and the environment (see: Who Pays for Paradise Paved); it’s quite another when the Christian Science Monitor runs a feature on the topic.
CSM’s article is about Bryan Pijanwoski, a land use scientist at Purdue University who’s taking a nationwide tally of parking spots. His initial trial run, a survey of his home county of Tippecanoe, Indiana, conservatively estimated 355,000 off-street, non-residential parking spaces. This equates to 2 square miles of pavement, or about 1,000 football fields. The county has 3 spots for every vehicle, and 11 for every family.
Extrapolate these figures to the entire nation and we’re looking at a parking lot the size of Connecticut. The reality is likely much worse since Pijanowski’s figures don’t count on-street or residential parking, and only include the footprint of multi-level parking garages.
The cost of these often "free" parking spots is both financial and environmental. The pavement leads to more, faster, and hotter water runoff that is laced with contaminants. Our cities have enough pavement to increase their temperatures and change weather patterns. The hidden financial costs emerge in the prices of consumer goods (whether the buyer drives or not), the costs of buildings, and property rents.
Photo via flickr by Roger Smith
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having just returned to london after a several hundred km ride across europe i am amazed to see that londons roads in comparison look like we still haven’t recovered from the war. my 23mm tyres managed 6 european cites and intercity riding without any damage to them or anything else on my bike. however, with 10 minutes on londons roads i have a buckled wheel.
i appreciate the extra money for cyclists but until we are given dignified space on the road, out of the gutters, without drain covers, craters and battles for road space from frustrated ‘comfortable box mentality” type that see us as just obstacles