We've got two transit station parking craters in today's matchup, the fifth contest in Streetsblog's 2018 Parking Madness tournament.
Houston, Lansing, and Providence have advanced to round two so far, with voting still open in Friday's Greenville vs. Portland car storage slugfest.
Today's contest is a sad display of unfulfilled walkability, with one parking crater smack in the center of Washington, DC, and one in an East Bay suburb served by BART.
Washington, D.C.
This spot was nominated by (drumroll...) Vox co-founder Matt Yglesias, who says he's "obsessed with this in DC because it’s right in the city core."
The parking lot around the Capitol South Metro station is the one Yglesias singled out. In the original spirit of the term "parking crater," it forms a visible depression in the urban fabric. We pulled back the lens in this view since there are more parking lots nearby, and because we want to show the proximity of the nation's most hallowed institutions.
Funnily enough, the area just out of frame north of the Capitol competed in Parking Madness two years ago. Some kind of metaphor.
Fremont
This right here is the area around the BART station in Fremont, California. You can make out the station toward the top of the frame. While BART offers direct service to Oakland and San Francisco from here, the station isn't exactly anchoring a walkable neighborhood.
All that surface parking by a rapid transit station is all the more aggravating in light of California's severe housing crisis. The Fremont station is the latest in a long line of BART stations to compete in Parking Madness, including West Dublin/Pleasanton, Walnut Creek, and El Cerrito. Instead of acre after acre of asphalt, how many thousands of people could be living within walking distance of these four stations?
Without further ado, it's time to vote.
Read More:
Stay in touch
Sign up for our free newsletter
More from Streetsblog USA
Friday’s Headlines Got Served
Another day, another GOP lawsuit trying to overturn a Biden administration climate change rule.
Disabled People Are Dying in America’s Crosswalks — But We’re Not Counting Them
The data on traffic fatalities and injuries doesn’t account for their needs or even count them. Better data would enable better solutions.
LA: Automated Enforcement Coming Soon to a Bus Lane Near You
Metro is already installing on-bus cameras. Soon comes testing, outreach, then warning tickets. Wilshire/5th/6th and La Brea will be the first bus routes in the bus lane enforcement program.
Talking Headways Podcast: Charging Up Transportation
This week, we talk to the great Gabe Klein, executive director of President Biden's Joint Office of Energy and Transportation (and a former Streetsblog board member), about curbside electrification.
Why Does the Vision Zero Movement Stop At the Edge of the Road?
U.S. car crash deaths are nearly 10 percent higher if you count collisions that happen just outside the right of way. So why don't off-road deaths get more air time among advocates?
