Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Parking Madness 2017

It’s Parking Madness Time — Send Us Your Parking Disasters!

Fields of parking near the El Cerrito BART station. Image via Google Maps

It's March and that means it's Parking Madness season at Streetsblog. Today we're launching our fifth annual tournament in search of North America's worst parking blight, and we're switching things up a little.

In previous years, the Parking Madness competition was open to pockmarked downtowns, asphalt-covered waterfronts, and sad windswept parking craters of all stripes. This year we're looking for something more specific: crazy amounts of parking near transit stations.

Transit systems work best when they make places more walkable. If people can easily walk to transit, more people can ride, and fewer people will need to drive. But a lot of transit stops are surrounded by surface lots and parking decks. They repel pedestrians, generate more car traffic than foot traffic, and drain transit agency resources that could be used to run more trains and buses instead.

We need to do better -- hence this exercise in public shaming. Streetsblog is looking for 16 of the most indefensible parking-saturated transit stations to populate this year's Parking Madness bracket. Nominations in urban settings will have a better shot at making the cut than suburban park-and-rides.

To nominate an entry, send visual evidence, the precise location, and a written description of why it's so bad to angie (at) streetsblog (dot) org, or leave the information in the comments. To be eligible, the entry must be in a North American city and cannot have competed in previous years -- you can check here, here, here, and here. Entries are due March 10.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Friday Video: The London Neighborhood Where Bikes Outnumber Cars

...and how they got to that impressive milestone.

July 11, 2025

Friday’s Headlines Battle Galactus

Like the Marvel supervillain, U.S. interstate highway system seems to eat up everything in his path.

July 11, 2025

Talking Headways Podcast: Localities Subsidize the State DOT

Adie Tomer of Brookings on how to improve regional coordination around infrastructure.

July 10, 2025

Five of the Ugliest Transportation Policies In the ‘Big, Beautiful’ Bill

Here's a rundown of some of the transportation provisions in the Republicans' reconciliation package, and what they might mean for your community.

July 10, 2025

Viva La Thursday’s Headlines

Why is French transit ridership up 10 percent since before the pandemic, while American transit ridership is down 23 percent?

July 10, 2025

Wednesday’s Headlines Are Bigger and Beautiful-er

There's a lot of bad news in the Big Beautiful Bill — but it also may have helped kill a major highway expansion in Oregon.

July 9, 2025
See all posts