Parking Madness: Nashville vs. Providence
Does the sight of huge, ugly parking lots make you feel sad and faintly nauseous? Too bad!
We've got five more Parking Madness matches before we crown the victor and award the Golden Crater. The Final Four is beginning to take shape, with Lansing through to the semi-final and voting still open in the Houston vs. Philadelphia stadium parking rumble.
Today, Nashville's NFL parking moonscape takes on Providence's pockmarked hospital campus.
Nashville
Nashville's Nissan Stadium was nominated by reader Adam Blair. What separates it from other stadium craters in this year's Parking Madness bracket is its proximity to downtown, which is just across the river. Rather than clustering more housing and jobs in the center of town, Nashville lets this real estate sit empty for much of the year, channeling runoff into the Cumberland River.
All told, the stadium has 7,500 parking spaces, with the complex spread out over 120 acres, according to the Nashville Sports Authority. Like too many other large sports venues, the public subsidized Nissan Stadium and its parking lots, with more than $200 million in taxpayer funds from Davidson County and the state of Tennessee channeled into this project.
Providence
Despite being a stone's throw from downtown Providence, the area surrounding Rhode Island Hospital is saturated with surface parking.
Buses do serve this area, according to the reader who nominated it, and the city is planning a "Downtown Connector" that will consolidate various routes and increase the frequency of service to every five minutes. Will that also prompt redevelopment of these asphalt lots, so people don't have to walk through a bleak parking dead zone to get to the bus?
Read More:
Stay in touch
Sign up for our free newsletter
More from Streetsblog USA
Wednesday’s Headlines Ask How Much a Life Is Worth
There isn't much of a financial penalty for drivers who kill pedestrians — even if those drivers are cops.
‘I’m Not Grieving Alone’: New Play Explores a Father’s Journey After Losing Two Children to Traffic Violence
Colin Campbell and his wife Gail Lerner lost both their children in a car crash with impaired driver. A new play explores how to talk about similar tragedies.
How Transit Saved Lives — And Became a Lifeline — During and After the Maui Fires
A Maui bus agency helped transport 42,000 people off the island in the wake of one of the most devastating fires in American history — and highlighted the critical role that shared modes can play not just in preventing climate-related disasters, but saving lives when they happen.
California Has to Stop Building Freeways. Now.
"People aren't used to thinking of freeways as fossil fuel infrastructure, but they are." And once built, there's no going back, no making up for the extra driving by trying to convince people that a bus or train might be a better choice - we're stuck with it.
Streetfilms Tours Emeryville, Calif., the Little City that Can
Did somebody say "encore?" Safe streets rock star John Bauters, Mayor of Emeryville, population less-than 13,000, gave Streetfilms producer Clarence Eckerson a tour of his city.
