Black Friday Parking 2024: BR 151

They were there for the deals at the Marion Wal-Mart

Even frigid temperatures could not deter this devotee of #BlackFridayParking, Strong Towns' annual photographic survey of excess parking. Cultural devotion to ensuring drivers have an easy (and free or cheap) time storing the cars wherever they go has created a profligate use of land. Case in point: I went to a bar with some coworkers the day before Thanksgiving. It's a small building, 1800 square feet. Do you know how many parking spaces would fit in that building? Ten. That's all. So you can just imagine how many alternative uses we're foregoing with just one single megaparking lot.

Northwest section of the lot, 9 a.m.

This year's observance of #blackfridayparking took me to the Wal-Mart at the edge of Marion, or what used to be the edge of Marion, at the intersection of US151 and SR13. Built in 2005, it is the most newest of our metro's three Super Centers. There were a lot of people shopping there, and a lot of cars parked, and yet, as busy as it was, huge swaths of the lot went unoccupied. I'd guesstimate it might have been 55 percent full.

View from McDonald's

Northeast edge

Marion has grown quickly, more than doubling its population since 1990. More recently they have reconfigured traffic to enhance their Uptown area, and are engaged in writing a comprehensive plan for the next 25 years. For thirty years, though, their growth was an explosion of suburban development, much of it along Business Route 151, which runs from this intersection through the center of town into Cedar Rapids, where it becomes 1st Avenue East. So for about two miles, it seems like the edge of town, because the edge has moved ever-outward as the town has grown.

Hy-Vee Grocery Store, 3600 10th Avenue.
Maybe 75 percent full at 9:30 a.m.

Average daily traffic counts along this stretch are 16700 across 151/13, 13000 above 50th St, 11700 between 50th and 44th, and 14400 between 44th and 35th; after a roundabout routes traffic onto 6th Avenue, 7th Avenue still carries 5600 approaching 26th Street.

Auto-Zone, 1055 Linden Drive.
Last picture I took before my camera rebelled.

I walked along BR 151 to a coffee appointment in Uptown. It really gives you a sense of how human scale is lost in auto-centric development, in that I could walk five minutes and feel as though I was getting nowhere. It's difficult to convey in photographs, particularly since my phone rebelled against the cold at this point--it was about 15 degrees, and windy--and refused to come out of its shell until we were safely inside the coffee shop. 

Best I could do: Google Earth screenshot
looking east from 31st Street

As Marion undertakes its new comprehensive plan, they may or may not try to diversify this route. There certainly is a lot of parking along the way...

Screenshot from Marion 2045 page,
showing 26th to 44th Streets

Screenshot from Marion 2045 page,
showing area around Wal-Mart and 151/13 intersection

...which arguably is a bigger issue than whatever's going on at Wal-Mart.

Spending land that could be productive and interesting on parking lots seems irrational to me. But so does waiting ten cars deep at a drive through, and I saw that at both Starbucks and Dunkin today. So do all the people huddled under blankets in the long line outside Da Bin consignment store. There is clearly much I don't understand, which keeps your humble blogger extra-humble.

SEE ALSO

"Marion 2045," Marion comprehensive plan page

"Uptown Marion Parking Study" (May 2024)

"Black Friday Parking 2024: Mount Vernon Road," 24 November 2024 [last year's observance]

"Black Friday Parking 2019," 29 November 2019 [last time I surveyed Marion]