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Indiana county has three times more parking spaces than residents

Posted at 3:23 PM on 19 Sep 2007

Indiana's Tippecanoe County is home to 155,000 residents whom apparently are swamped with visitors, as the county has 355,000 public parking spaces. We'll just float this by them: Parking lots can contribute to water pollution, erosion, the urban heat island effect, and local flooding. Which could be extra dangerous for those in a Tippecanoe -- if you get our drift. They could be up a creek without a paddle. It gives us a sinking feeling. OK, we're done.

source: LiveScience

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Comments: (7 comments)

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"Whom"

should be "who." Just sayin'.

by Pathos at 10:39 PM on 19 Sep 2007

And still the people clamor for more..

I doubt if Tippecanoe is unusual. I read somewhere (?) that there are NINE parking spaces for every automobile in the US. Up from seven per vehicle in the 1980's.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

by spaceshaper at 3:43 AM on 20 Sep 2007

free enterprise

And does not the creation of ample parking facilities more often than not have to do with the demands of store owners to make their stores accessible? We tend to think of developers of residential districts as being the greatest evil geniuses in the destruction of the American landscape; but surely local business interests deserve to join them.

And Spaceshaper is right, irrationally exuberant parking lots are by no means a unique specialization of Tippecanoe County. E.g., the newly developed southern reaches of Springfield, MO, where my mother-in-law lives, is a paradise of parking lots, clean, inviting, well-maintained, approaching the Platonic ideal of what the metaphysical parking lot must look like, each surrounding its own free-standing commercial building.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 4:37 AM on 20 Sep 2007

Campus parking

While I don't love seeing parking lots, this article fails to mention that Tippecanoe County is also home of Purdue Univ. Almost 70,000 students attend this school. I would think that almost anyone who has visited a large campus has had problems with finding a parking space. Besides the students and staff who commute, parking is needed for visitors, family, alumni, etc. All these people need to park somewhere and I don't see anyone volunteering their driveways.

by Cat at 7:04 AM on 20 Sep 2007

Only if they drive a car, Cat

The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan, and Michigan State are all giant Big 10, cold-weather campuses with upwards of 40,000 students plopped in the middle of urban areas (Michigan State the least urban of these).

They all force parking to the outskirts, making driving unwise and expensive. Their policies actively discourage people from driving.

Thinking that you have to provide parking for 70,000 students is inviting the problem. What you have to do is provide classes and what you should do is provide good pedestrian, bus, and bike options. Whether you choose to provide parking is another matter entirely.

The 5% Project

by JMG at 7:34 AM on 20 Sep 2007

Parking, Shmarking

Why pick on poor little Tippecanoe County? Purdue, Lafayette, and West Lafayette are urban islands in an otherwise sea of farmland. Only 38,000 students go to the main campus in West Lafayette - the Purdue-Indiana University satellite schools spread all over the state comprise about 70,000 students. (Someone needs to do a little fact checking before spouting off) One facet of this seemingly overage of parking places in Tippecanoe County is the Subaru plant in Lafayette. The plant has had to build parking places for their cars rolling off the production line. They can produce cars so quickly that they means to get the cars to the showrooms lag behind production. So, if you are feeling smug about owning an environmentally friendly Subaru, you can also own up to the fact that your car contributes to asphalt pollution. HA!

Most times for evil to win it doesn't take a large, horrible event; it just takes a lot of people each doing just a little bad. AOOOOOOooooooooo.........

by Wolfy at 6:06 AM on 22 Sep 2007

Solar PV

Solar over all those parking spaces and garages could power plugin hybrids for everyone in the county. At least use the land already developed to power up with solar. That much is easy to do.

That Bjorn ass was on Real Time and claimed solar PV costs 10 times what fossil fuel electricity costs. No one challenged him. Why? because even rabble rousers like Bill Mahr don't know the facts about renewable energy and conservation.

We are not doing our part. We need to get this into the mass delusional media. Saturate it so liars like bjorn are shouted down by the audience.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 7:40 AM on 22 Sep 2007

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