Parking Madness 2015: Fort Worth vs. Boise

Fort Worth, TX. Right next to downtown. Featuring not one, not two, but THREE 6-7 story parking garages spaning five city blocks. That would be fine, but there are another eight full blocks with surface parking lots (three of them are riverfront property) with an additional five blocks partially taken by surface parking. Oh, and there's on street parking as well. Overkill...

Downtown Boise and the fabulous dirt lot between the Front/Myrtle couplet.

The biggest part of the crater is that big dirt lot sandwiched between the downtown couplet of Front and Myrtle streets. I think it's $2 a day to park there. The city has always felt that the couplet has been a detriment to expanding downtown Boise south of Front Street. There has been some infill closer to the heart of downtown but there are big swaths east and west that remain parking lots. Much of that was wiped out during urban renewal where they figured it would be easier to wipe the slate clean than wait around for old buildings and warehouses to be renovated or repurposed.