You may currently be making choices to reduce your environmental impact on a daily basis. Maybe you drive a fuel-efficient car or even a hybrid vehicle. When you drive that hybrid vehicle, you are definitely reducing your environmental impact. However, once you get to your destination and pull into a parking spot, your hybrid vehicle has the exact same environmental impact as the SUV you just parked next to. That's because you just parked your hybrid vehicle in a parking lot, which has a huge environmental impact.
Parking lots are problematic when it comes to the environment for many reasons. To start, parking lots are sources of water pollution because of the use of impervious surfaces. When it rains, all of the rain that falls onto a parking lot becomes urban runoff, which is dirty water that is not even safe enough to water plants with. Parking lots are dirty places that are filled with gasoline, motor oil, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH's), heavy metals and trash. When it rains, all of that stuff goes into the storm drain, which then goes into the waterways, polluting the habitats of numerous species.
Parking lots also contribute to the urban heat island effect, which is the effect that describes the increased ambient air temperature in a city due to excessive numbers of concrete and paved areas. The heat island effect is significant and has even been shown to change local weather patterns. The heat island effect of parking lots can be somewhat mitigated by providing trees throughout a parking lot, but the effect is minimal.
Parking lots also take up a lot of space. Most parking lots are designed to accommodate the busiest days of the year for the business that the parking lot serves. So, this means that on one or two days a year a parking lot will be filled to about 90% capacity. For the remaining 364 or 363 days of the year, however, the average parking lot sits at far less than half capacity. That wasted space could be put to much better use.
So, even though you parked your hybrid vehicle in a free parking space, it's not really free. Sure, it won't cost you any money to park in a free parking space, but it will take a toll on the environment. Whenever you participate in something, part of the environmental impact of that activity sits on your shoulders. When you park your car in a free parking lot, you are personally responsible for the environmental impact of that parking spot. You become responsible for part of the water pollution, part of the urban heat island effect and part of the problem.
Next time you consider going out, think twice being taking your personal automobile. EnviriCitizen.org challenges you to take public transportation instead to avoid having to make use of a parking lot in hopes that over time the demand for parking will decrease and parking lots will become smaller and smaller, making their environmental impact smaller as well. |
