Parking Madness: Rochester vs. Miami

We’re seeing all sorts of parking craters as the 2014 Parking Madness tournament rolls on: pockmarked craters, endless abysses, deep caverns. Excess parking in cities takes many forms. And so we ask you to help us judge which is the worst, using the only method that can be applied consistently across all parking craters — online polling.

Up today, we have a wintry northeastern burgh and a sunny Florida metropolis: It’s Rochester vs. Miami.

Let’s start off with Rochester:

Submitter Matthew Denker describes the empty heart of this grotesque parking cluster: “It’s an intersection with surface parking at all 4 corners. There is literally no reason to have a road here when it’s just a sea of parking. Even better (worse) you can see a massive parking garage on the left edge on the same block, and if you move just a hair north, you can see a park that was cut in half by a highway. And of course the area used to be the main square of Rochester and where the town Christmas tree was raised.”

Interestingly, Rochester recently received some funds to fill in portions of the Inner Loop highway, shown at the very top. Unfortunately, it’s not this part of town that will see the improvement, says Denker.

Now, on to Miami:

Submitter Rob Wag tells us these shadowy, cavernous craters are made worse by their location: “Million dollar parking views, overlooking the Miami River and Biscayne Bay.”

Perhaps there’s hope for Miami, however, as some developers are constructing new residential towers with no on-site parking whatsoever.