Too Much Parking Drives NPS Pollution

A Purdue University study found that parking spaces outnumbered residents by 3-to-1 in a suburban Midwestern county.

Researchers surveyed the total area devoted to parking in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, and compared it to the number of resident drivers. Purdue professor Bernard Engel, who used computer modeling to estimate changes in stormwater runoff caused by land-use changes, found that Tippecanoe County parking lots turn out about 1,000 pounds of heavy metal runoff annually. The study found that parking spaces outnumbered resident families 11-to-1 and that the total parking area was larger than 1,000 football fields, or two square miles. Because of the stormwater runoff and heat contributed by vast expanses of parking lots, the study recommended that businesses could be more creative about utilizing combined-use or shared parking lots, thereby saving construction and property costs while minimizing land use. This approach might benefit large churches and "big-box" retailers, which often feature parking lots that take up more than twice the area of their buildings.

Science Daily, September 12, 2007 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070911155501.htm