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Detroit, 10:42 PM
Fri Nov 27
4 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/26/09
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11/26/09
More typically, there are parking lots with planted areas spaced frequently and graded so that water runs into those plantings, or is collected in a subsurface drainage system and permitted to percolate into the groundwater, via either a perforated underground cistern or through retention/detention basins that can look like ponds.
The pollution from roads, parking lots and lawns is called non-point source pollution, describing how diffuse it is. It is a serious problem for lots of waterways. It is fairly common for parking lot drainage systems to include oil/sand separators in their drainage boxes, to limit what pollutants travel further towards the water.
The Chesapeake Bay's water quality problems are now much more influenced by lawn and field runoff carrying fertilizers, weedkiller, pesticides, and pet poop. Dialing back on all that, and making minor landscape changes so stormwater can percolate into the soil before reaching the Bay will lead to immense improvements in the Bay's health.
11/25/09
I like this writeup and agree. As an urban dweller, I fully appreciate the (free) parking lot, and as an ex-suburbanite, parking lots were the only places (besides car washes) that we teens were allowed to hang out. ("Bowl another game or GTFO!") When I'm back in Michigan, I'm often tempted to drive places just because they have a parking lot, and I can park back in the driveway when I get home. Appreciate the small stuff.
My only addition to this piece would be to mention Ed Ruscha's 1967 photobook Thirtyfour Parking Lots. It contains pics of, yup, 34 parking lots, and tries to emphasize the beauty of these most banal of settings, much like Sam "PL" Smith has done in this writeup. Pic attached.
I'm glad I actually read through the comments before posting too, because I was going to cry out for the inclusion of Heavy Metal Parking Lot. (I lack the plug-ins at work to see what the vids are of, and lack the permissions to install them. Life is struggle.)
11/25/09
11/25/09
I am so thankful for Jalopnik this year.
11/25/09
11/25/09
If I hit the exact center of the space, all vehicle occupants will be peppered with leading questions like "Whoo, nailed that one didn't I?" and "Am I closer to the line on that side?", etc. I am a shameless parksturbator like that.
11/25/09
Also, you got that damn Beck song stuck in my head. FU, Sam.
11/25/09
11/25/09
Parking lots are the dark side. They're the antithesis of everything we love about cars. Cars are for driving, not for sitting in neat little rows. They're for taking corners at stupid speeds and blasting across deserts to bring the horizon to us. They're for carting vast quantities of humans and goods from one place to another in great movements of commerce and civilization. Cars are instruments of independence and prosperity. They are tools, and tools are given meaning and purpose by the tasks for which they are constructed. A parked car is a car not doing its job, a tool with no purpose, a waste of space. Think about a junkyard-- hundreds of hulks, cars with no more miles left in them, arranged in neat little rows, left to rot and be picked dry. A parking lot is a foreshadowing of that, minus the usefulness of inexpensive parts. If Ray Bradbury's point holds true, that 4 a.m. is the closest a man comes to being dead while still living, a parking lot is the closest a car comes to the junkyard while still retaining some semblance of life.
If I may be permitted to reference your earlier post, Mr. Smith, which pointed out some of the more remarkable machines of our era, you may realize that almost every one of these cars would draw attention in a parking lot. Beside Sebrings and Accords, even the common RX-8 throws up a flag. It's a spark of life that says, "I don't belong here. I should be out on the road, turning dead dinosaurs into motive power, making noise, creating passion in human beings." If we glorify vehicles that move us, how can we simlarly elevate an institution--the parking lot--which serves only to hold these vehicles captive?
11/25/09
Parking lot for women.
11/25/09
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11/25/09
I do have to point out that if it weren't for parking lots where would I do burnouts?
11/25/09
11/25/09
#tips
12:20 AM
11/25/09
How do I love thee, dear parking lot? Let me count the ways:
1) You're where we stop to take a piss in hopes that no one will see us.
2) You're where we get in more accidents than anywhere else.
3) You're a place that we circle for hours on end just because we have to have a spot in front to "save time", while the few people who take what they can get are in and out long before we've seen an empty spot.
4) You're a timeless setting for being a douchebag and pissing off other people by parking our BMWs in two spaces.
5) You're a place of chaotic consternation waiting in aisles that are endlessly jammed up because some asshat is sitting directly in the middle of the aisle for no reason whatsoever.
Alternatively, some crack pot bum could be slowly strolling up the middle of the isle with a cart load of whatever, completely ignorant of the massive temptation to run him down, especially in the holiday season.
6) You're a place where we can be pricks to other drivers, and take out sweet ass time loading our cars, getting in our cars, turning the ignition, turning on the AC, finding a radio station that we like, checking our text messages, lighting a cigarette, putting our seat belt on, putting the car into gear, and at last backing out; all the while, we have caused a massive traffic jam in the parking lot.
7) You're a place where the odds of getting mugged rise exponentially.
8) You are a place that is great at absorbing heat, and turning our cars into de facto ovens.
9) You're a place where our cars are most frequently stolen from.
10) You are a magnet for crap of all kinds, from oil slicks to nails that pop your tires.
11) You're a place with an almost infinite supply of the most obnoxious speed bumps known to man.
12) You are a favored venue for drug deals and gang activity.
Oh parking lot, oh parking lot, your awesomeness is so....not there. Screw you, parking lot.
I cannot, however, deny your significance.
11/25/09
If not for the parking lot, I don't think anyone would go to get into their car and find that someone let a runaway shopping cart smash into the side of their car, chipping paint or even denting the body.
I know a parking lot in town that uses perpendicular parking at opposing store strips, so you have about one carlength of road between the bumpers of the parked cars - there is zero visiblility, so you basically go cautiously through hoping no one backs into you, and stopping in huge queues when someone pops out in front of you, then saws back and forth to get turned around enough to actually leave. Likewise it's damn impossible to turn into a space on the first try there, especially with cars packed bumper to bumper in every direction - but you can either take up 2 spaces and get keyed, or wait for everyone else to pass by before making your next adjustment.
To a lesser extent I know an angle parking lot that uses lines long enough for perpendicular parking, so you basically choose if the front or back of your car will stick out past the space, and look back any way you do it.
Then, some people don't even try - they just park their monster truck across 4 spaces when the lot's full, so you have to park at another lot and walk across it AND the lot you should have parked in to get where you're going. Some people think their cars are so special and fancy that it gives them the right to do this, but that's also a great way to get vandalized...
In larger cities around here, Imperial Parking owns every lot in the city, so you pay a fee every time you get out of your car.
Of course there are illegally huge speed bumps that will scrape anything less than a pickup truck.
Dumb people walk blindly in front of your car like you're not there when all you want to do is get in or out, because they can't be bothered to use a crosswalk a few feet away.
Then there's the catch 22 about whether you want to build a massive, sprawling parking lot that takes up 2/3 of your land (at a big place like a campus) and force you to walk 10-15 min to the building every day, or build a parkade, where your car is far more likely to be stolen from, or just stolen.
Parking lots are a neccesary evil. We need them because everyone has cars, but they are one of the biggest wastes of space AND vehicle hazards that mankind builds.
11/25/09
Trying to put heart to the heartless?
NEVER
A parking lot is a place where cars are tortured. Scraped. Bumped. Dented, Dinged, Sideswiped, Bent, Broken etc, etc.
Same with garages. They are places you leave the object of your affection behind.
The only true, happy place a car can be is on a ribbon of asphault, with a slight bend, cool breeze, an arm hanging out the window and driver muttering to him (or herself)....
"Fuck Yeah"
....then glancing up at the rear view mirror to appreciate the section of road just passed, for all the wonderful memories it just made.
That is soul. That is Jalopnik.
11/25/09
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11/25/09
Well, just fixed THAT situtation.
11/25/09
11/25/09
@Van Sarockin, rogue trebuchet: Like, one of these, you mean?