At 08:12 PM 7/19/00 -0700, you wrote:
>ecofem and biomonitor,
>
>I recently posted out a plea/gripe about Wal-Mart clear cutting 25 acre of
>woods for yet another store in the Houston area. A positive result of all
>the commotion I'm trying very hard to raise is that a Houston columnist
>(for an ecology-minded gardening column) is going to do a story on parking
>lots - i.e. on better ways of doing them. Does anyone have any stellar
>examples that she can cite? Okay, how about mediocre ones?
In Sacramento, California, at the California Exposition and State Fair
Grounds, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District has an experimental
installation of solar collectors, used to shade the parking spaces. Thus
they perform two functions with the same ray of sunlight; they prevent it
from overheating the car parked underneath, while adding electricity to the
grid. the parking lots are immense, there are literally acres of them, and
although Sacramento County has a "Shade Ordinance" that mandates that 50%
of the lots surface be shaded by trees, Cal Expo was apparently built
before it went into effect. It will be interesting to see how long the
collectors work, and if any other businesses join in the project. I have
yet to learn if there is some kind of incentive program behind it, to
encourage other businesses to join in. Although the shade is denser than
trees, it does have the drawback of not providing the other function of
trees, which is filtering the junk out of the air. Sacramento is rapidly
becoming the new Los Angeles of the West, in terms of air pollution, with
a brown blanket suspended over the valley. From the entires into the
valley from the foothills, it looks the same as the air approach to LAX did
in the 70's.
Landscape Architects design the planted part of a parking lot, and the
actual layout of the spaces is either done by the L.A. or by the
architect. Having done this kind of commercial LA work and been schooled
in Landscape Architecture, I would be happy to answer any specific
questions you might have, if I can. (By law, I can't say I'm a Landscape
Architect 'til I pass the state board exam, hence the unwieldy explanation.)
Patti
