Just as we love malls and other commercial areas with tins of parking to spare that does not drive you crazy in your daily battle for parking, studies in the US are finding that parking lots outnumber resident drivers by as much as 3 to 1. They also outnumber resident families by 11 to 1 meaning we are really pushing it when it comes to parking.

“Even I was surprised by these numbers,” said Bryan Pijanowski, the associate professor of forestry and natural resources who led the study in Purdue’s home county of Tippecanoe. “I can’t help but wonder: Do we need this much parking space?”

Poor planning of such development has been a pain in the past but commercial developers have taken notice and are now taking measures to alleviate the lack of parking spaces to cater to their customers. Gone are the days of not enough parking and the never-ending scan for available parking space and in with ample, even excessive spaces to cater to all. The problem is that these parking lots entail a lot of concreted or paved spaces that most of the time serves no useful purpose. Parking lots are usually empty and only filled up during select times of the year and all that paved space translates to hotter climate. Water cannot seep into the soil, ending up in the gutters and drains lowering the water table. The heat the concrete absorbs during the day is released throughout the night making the microclimate warmer and warmer. Multi-level parking areas also pose risks for the toxic gasses that accumulate in them; especially in underground facilities are dangerous to your health. Higher gas prices have many taking busses rather than spend an arm and a leg on gas further complicating the matter. More planning and understanding of such development is indeed needed to lessen the impact of wasted space that is proving to be too much for nature to handle.