Parking Madness: San Bernardino vs. Atlanta

The second round action continues in Parking Madness as we hunt for the most appalling parking craters next to transit stations.

With Hartford’s victory over Cleveland, the Elite Eight is set. Voting remains open in the first contest to enter the Final Four, New York vs. Poughkeepsie, until tomorrow afternoon.

The five other heinous parking craters sapping transit of its essential purpose to move people and support walking are: Denver, St. Louis, Medford (outside Boston), and today’s two contestants — an Inland Empire crater and an Atlanta Streetcar special.

San Bernardino Transit Center

The San Bernardino Transit Center beat out a site in Chicago in the first round. This transit hub opened in 2015, serving commuter rail, a new bus rapid transit line, and 17 other bus routes. As long as parking dominates the landscape, however, these investments in transit won’t go as far as they should. Reader Anna Jaiswal says it’s not a pretty picture:

A new 166-space parking lot is being constructed on the south side of the tracks. The entire surrounding downtown area is rife with unused parking, including 2,000 spaces in the near-vacant City-owned Carousel Mall lot just one block to the North, the baseball stadium just one block to the South, and several strip retail centers neighboring the Transit Center.

Atlanta – Luckie Street and Centennial Olympic Park Drive

This downtown Atlanta area with three streetcar stops ousted Little Rock in round one. Reader Michelle Rushing marked up the satellite view with streetcar stops as purple stars, surface parking outlined in orange, and parking decks in blue. The streetcar has not been attracting many riders, nor has it been spurring development on these lots, Rushing says:

There is a park on one side but the surrounding blocks are parking and more parking, punctuated by an occasional restaurant or hotel. In the 2+ years since the streetcar was completed, the only development has been to add solar panels to the parking lot next to the stop.

But is it Final Four material?