#BlackFridayParking Shows How Our Parking Lots Are Way Too Big 

There are plenty of reasons to gripe about Black Friday: Big crowds and crappy deals are chief among them, but a lack of parking is not. This year, the #BlackFridayParking hashtag swept over Twitter faster than a doorbuster deal.

#BlackFridayParking showed just how much space is wasted on huge parking lots that will never be filled to capacity. Even on the biggest shopping day of the year, plenty of parking lots were left without reaching critical mass. This is great for shoppers who don’t want to schlep their goods across the whole parking lot, but not so great for communities and the environment.

Why are all these lots so empty? Because of minimum parking requirements that call for developers to make more parking spots than there is a demand for. This clearly isn’t an “If you build it, they will come” situation.

Luckily, some places are nixing their minimum parking requirements so they can cut back on ginormous parking lots and maybe use that extra space for something beneficial for the community. Thanks to Strong Towns, here’s a map of some cities that have started cutting back on parking minimums so they can (hopefully) maximize their space on stuff that matters.

But here’s one minimum parking requirement we can get behind: bike parking. There are always so many bikes and never enough poles or places to lock up your two-wheeler.

With so many people opting for cycling as one of their main forms of transportation — which is ultimately a healthier, more environmentally friendly option anyways — it’s high time we made more room for people to park their rides.