OT: Parking Lot Design

1 Jul, 2005  Uncategorized

This is slightly off topic, but I want to talk about parking lot design.  Parking lots can be the most stressful places to drive for a couple reasons:

  • The idiot in front of you
  • Poor layout

As an example, here is a small shopping center near my house in NE Minneapolis called the The Quarry.  The white circle is a fairly busy stoplight, as the road coming to the light from the south is a freeway exit ramp.  I drive here from the top left corner of the picture on my way to the bank, which is the white square in the bottom right corner.  You’ll notice 2 paths to the bank from the stoplight, one in white and the other in blue.  The path in white is the “normal” way to get to the bank; you enter the parking lot, drive across, and down to the bank.  The route in blue is the route that I take. By avoiding the areas of the parking lot where all the pedestrians are, you can shave about an entire 2 minutes off the driving time.

The picture is from a screenshot of Google Earth. I hope I don’t get sued or anything :)   The image is about 1MB, sorry.

My question is this: why do designers put the entrance to a parking lot at the front of the lot near the stores?  This situation would be much better for everyone involved if the cars entered from the bottom of the picture, this way the cars dont get in the way of the people, and vice-versa.  I realize that there are other considerations, but this is by no means an isolated case. Think about this the next time you’re pulling into the mall parking lot :)   Have a great 4th of July weekend!

 

4 Comments

  1. Anonymous said,

    Wrote on July 1, 2005 @ 2:35 pm

    Why not bypass the busy stoplight altogether and hit up the road to the north, head east to the next road, head south, and enter the bank.

    This may be a longer route but I’d bet that it’s less troublesome.

  2. Anonymous said,

    Wrote on July 1, 2005 @ 4:48 pm

    I don’t see what the problem is, everyone knows that pedestrians count 200 points.

  3. Anonymous said,

    Wrote on July 2, 2005 @ 2:51 pm

    Just out of curiosity – how can a post on your own personal blog be off topic?

  4. breichelt said,

    Wrote on July 4, 2005 @ 2:01 pm

    Chris, thats a good idea, its easier to see those things from an aerial view.

    bobo – good one :)

    David – I meant that this post is off topic from the typical codebetter.com blog content

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