There are at least 500 mil empty parking spaces in the US at any given time

And there are only 250 million cars and trucks on our roads.

Civil engineers at the University of California, Berkeley published the first comprehensive estimate of parking spaces in the United States. This study pinpoints the real environmental impact associated with creating these hundreds of millions of parking spaces.

The wasted space that parking lots create only proves once again the automobile-centric lifestyle that Americans have become so accustomed to. Imagine all of the parks, plazas, open space that 500 million parking spaces could be transformed into. Of course creating parking lots is inevitable, but a re-evaluation of our land use policies must be done.

I remember my senior design project last spring before graduating, I was working with civil engineers to determine the best placement for a new transit center, public safety complex, and mixed-use facility. Several of the groups (including mine) were working together to select sites adjacent to one another in order to save space through shared parking. One would not believe the challenges we faced even considering the idea because of the parking space requirements layed out in the city's land use codes. It was ridiculous. The picture is so much bigger than parking, and getting this reality through people's minds is one of the greatest challenges we as planners face.