Parking Madness 2015

Parking Madness 2015 Elite Eight: Tampa vs. Fort Worth

It's almost a shame that these two titans are meeting in the second round of the Parking Madness tournament, because both Tampa and Fort Worth look like they have champion potential.

By Angie Schmitt

2:23 PM EDT on March 27, 2015

Tampa

This crater advanced past Waterville, Maine in round one. Submitter Joshua Redman wrote:

This area is adjacent to both the Tampa Bay Times Forum (where the Lightning play) and the middle of downtown. Aside from the sea of designated parking lots, the empty lots in the bottom left of the picture are used as overflow parking during games. There is almost NO lighting and sidewalks.
Outside the picture to the left is Harbour Island, an island with million dollar condos and a beautiful riverwalk. Outside the picture at the bottom is the Channelside district, a new district of mixed use condos and retail, very walkable. And to the top and right is the central business district. This crater separates the three areas and is a pedestrian wasteland.

Was it always a wasteland? Apparently not. Here’s the same area of Tampa as it looked in 1969, before the highway, courtesy of Shane Hampton at the University of Oklahoma’s Institute for Quality Communities:

Let’s see how our next quarterfinalist measures up.

Fort Worth

Fort Worth topped Boise in the first round. The entry came from an anonymous source, who said:

Fort Worth, TX. Right next to downtown. Featuring not one, not two, but THREE 6-7 story parking garages spaning five city blocks. That would be fine, but there are another eight full blocks with surface parking lots (three of them are riverfront property) with an additional five blocks partially taken by surface parking. Oh, and there’s on street parking as well. Overkill…

We have a historical image of this area as well. Thanks again, Shane!

Unrecognizable.

Tell us which one earned a trip to the Final Four:

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.