Parking Madness: Federal Way vs. Montreal

We’re just getting started with Parking Madness 2016 — our annual hunt for North America’s worst parking craters. So far, Washington, D.C., and Rutland, Vermont, have advanced to the second round.

Today’s matchup pits the Seattle suburb of Federal Way against the pride of Quebec — Montreal. It’s the second Canadian parking crater in this year’s competition, reminding us that the United States doesn’t hold a monopoly on hideous parking scars.

Federal Way

Federal Way is a city of 92,000 located along the highway between Seattle and Tacoma. An anonymous reader sent this satellite image with orange outlines denoting surface parking. The red outline marks the Federal Way Transit Center, a hub for buses bound for Seattle and Tacoma. A 7.8-mile light rail extension from Seattle is slated to serve this area, which is barely more than a collection of surface parking lots.

If there’s a silver lining, it’s the abundance of opportunities for transit-oriented development near the future light rail station. But you could easily end up with a much worse scenario in which the parking crater survives as a gigantic park-and-ride lot.

Montreal

Submitted by Felix Gravel, this is the area around the city’s main intercity and commuter rail station. Surface parking lots are in red.

According to Wikipedia, the station serves 18 million passengers a year. Way to welcome them to the city!

Which parking crater is worse? Vote below.