Contests

Parking Madness “Elite Eight”: Kansas City vs. Grand Rapids

One more round, and we'll be down to the worst-of-the-worst parking craters in the Parking Madness bracket, our annual search for the worst excesses in urban surface parking.

By Angie Schmitt

1:30 PM EDT on April 1, 2014

One more round, and we’ll be down to the worst-of-the-worst parking craters in the Parking Madness bracket, our annual search for the worst excesses in urban surface parking.

Parking overkill has certainly done a lot of damage to both of today’s competitors — Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Kansas City. We need you to help us decide which city will join Jacksonville in the Final Four and get a shot at the Golden Crater.

First up, Kansas City. It’s rough just to look at this disaster:

This area is just one of a number of desolate Kansas City parking landscapes that readers nominated for the competition. Imagine walking from one end of this asphalt zone to the other. Someone in Kansas City should do it and tell us what it’s like.

Moving on. Here’s the competition in Grand Rapids:

Ah, nothing stirs the soul like waterfront surface parking. This spot bears a couple of hallmarks of the classic American parking crater: proximity to an urban highway and to a nearby sports arena — in this case, Van Andel Arena, home of the Grand Rapids Griffins minor league hockey franchise. Looks like the highway/arena combo has really done a number on this part of downtown.

Only the most obscene parking monstrosities deserve a spot in the Final Four of parking craters, however, so let us know which one you think is worse.

Angie Schmitt

Angie is a Cleveland-based writer with a background in planning and newspaper reporting. She has been writing about cities for Streetsblog for six years.