Today
Sections
More
Features
Monday, January 10, 2011
The high cost of parking
A national survey of parking spots conducted by U.C. Berkeley researchers found that there are three parking spaces for every car and truck in the United States.
While that might sound like good news, it's really not. The two vacant spots continue to generate carbon emissions and soot when your car isn't in them, based on life cycle analyses of the cement and asphalt. The Berkeley engineers say that, as a result, we should add 10 percent to our calculations of the greenhouse gases driving generates and double our estimates of the soot each car produces.
Even the current math says driving is an environmental doozy; with these new numbers there's that much more reason to improve our mass transit systems — and we still haven't factored in the carbon footprint of roads.
Oy asphalt.
| Jan 10 at 01:23 PM
more