2019 'Parking Madness' Shows How Much Has Changed

Angie Schmitt shares the results of the Parking Madness 2019 competition on Streetsblog USA, and Providence has won the "Golden Crater" award "for its decades-long effort to reclaim its public spaces from cars."

Astute observers will recall that Schmitt announced the Parking Madness 2019 with a crucial twist: instead of shaming cities with parking craters like in previous years, this year's Parking Madness would celebrate the best examples of former parking lots that have been transformed into places far more attractive, human, and healthy.

"Many cities made a strong claim to the crown, but Providence’s Capitol Hill area had the best story," according to Schmitt. "Back in the mid part of the last century, the Rhode Island Statehouse area was surround by an absolute moat of grey, lifeless asphalt." Now the area includes 'over one million square feet of retail space, 2 to 2.5 million square feet of office space, 1,000 hotel rooms, 500 residential units, 10,000 permanent jobs,' according to an expert cited in the article.