Parking lot

A parking lot (American English) or car park (British English), also known as a car lot, is a cleared area intended for parking vehicles. The term usually refers to an area dedicated only for parking, with a durable or semi-durable surface. In most countries where cars are the dominant mode of transportation, parking lots are a feature of every city and suburban area. Shopping malls, sports stadiums, megachurches and similar venues often have immense parking lots. (See also: multistorey car park) Parking lots tend to be sources of water pollution because of their extensive impervious surfaces, and because most have limited or no facilities to control runoff. Many areas today also require minimum landscaping in parking lots to provide shade and help mitigate the extent to which their paved surfaces contribute to heat islands. Many municipalities require minimum numbers of parking spaces for buildings such as stores (by floor area) and apartment complexes (by number of bedrooms). In the United States, each state's Department of Transportation sets the proper ratio for disabled spaces for private business and public parking lots. Modern parking lots use various technologies to enable motorists to pay parking fees, help them find unoccupied spaces and retrieve their vehicles, and improve their parking experiences. The effect of large-scale in-city parking has long been contentious. The replacement of historic structures by garages and lots has led to historical preservation movements in many cities. The massive acreage devoted to parking is widely seen as disruptive to walkable urban fabric, maximizing convenience to each individual building but hampering foot traffic between them. Large paved areas have been called "parking craters", "parking deserts", and similar terms, emphasizing their "depopulated" nature and the barriers they can create to walking movement. Parking minimums and maximums Urban planning policies such as parking minimums and maximums can influence the size of private parking lots.