https://danrodricks.com/2024/01/29/tear-up-unused-parking-lots-plant-trees/

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January 29, 2024January 29, 2024 Dan Rodricks Dan Rodricks

Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

[staplesparking-1]

The photo to the right is of the Staples parking lot behind the York
Road store in Baltimore, a classic example of a place that needs to
be turned back to urban forest -- or developed into a much-needed
something else. I can't think of a time when, during fairly frequent
trips to this store, I saw more than a dozen vehicles in the long,
large lot. And, if you keep it top-of-mind as you travel, you see
this sort of thing in many urban and suburban places. As I just
suggested in my Sun column, Baltimore and the surrounding counties
should conduct a "useless parking lot inventory" to identify all
impervious surfaces, public or private, that are either no longer
needed or too large for their current use. Retail shopping centers in
decline, abandoned industrial buildings -- remove the unnecessary
asphalt and plant some trees. Or do something constructive with this
unused, paved space -- new housing, a solar energy field.

Part of this is a result of poor planning and ordinance-making that
long ago overcompensated for the wide use of automobiles. Henry
Grabar, a staff writer at Slate, mentions this in a book published
last year, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World. "On a
national level, certainly, there's far more parking than we need,"
Grabar said in an interview. "There are at least four parking spaces
for every car, meaning that the parking stock is no more than 25
percent full at any given time. And some of those cars are moving at
any given time, so parking may be a good deal emptier than that."

I don't know that anyone besides Grabar is even thinking about this,
because parking lots are so deeply embedded in the American psyche,
in the environment we take for granted. But certain changes to how we
live and work -- the demise of malls and the decline of
brick-and-mortar retail, the advance of telecommuting in the wake of
the pandemic -- must have diminished the need for all that asphalt.
And all that asphalt effects both human health and the health of the
planet.

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Published by Dan Rodricks

Dan Rodricks is a long-time columnist for The Baltimore Sun, winner
of numerous national and regional journalism awards, a radio and TV
personality, podcaster and fly angler. His narrative memoir,
"Father's Day Creek," was published in May 2019 by Apprentice House
at Loyola University Maryland. View all posts by Dan Rodricks

3 thoughts on "Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees"

 1. [eeadeb] Susie Kantt says:
    January 29, 2024 at 10:42 am

    My husband, a now-retired city planner, has been saying this for
    years. At least add some trees to parking lots for the
    environmental benefit as well as shade for the cars parked in the
    vast acres of black asphalt. And make sure that they are trees
    native to the area!

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    Reply
 2. [f98ac4] pamelatanton123 says:
    January 29, 2024 at 11:57 am

    Yes!

    This looks like it's in Govans?

    When I was a child, my paternal grandparents lived on Clearspring
    Road, in a house that faced that parking lot space. But at the
    time, it was a vacant lot. I don't remember many trees on it, but
    that could happen, with the new Taylor Swift Lots-to-Trees
    Foundation.

    Pamela

    LikeLike

    Reply
 3. [7382d1] tomallie says:
    January 29, 2024 at 2:53 pm

    Dear Dan: This is a nice column and I totally agree with you.
    However, isn't it time to write another scathing article about
    the arch enemy that currently occupies to elected position of
    Representative to the 1st U. S. Congressional District of
    Maryland. He wrote a very nasty article about you the other day
    in The Baltimore Sun that definitely needs a reply.

    LikeLike

    Reply

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