Tulsa Enters Final Four In 'Parking Madness' Contest

Tulsa has reached the final four in a contest of dubious distinction. "Parking Madness" is a competition created by newspaper reporter turned city planner Angie Schmitt. The contest rates city downtown areas with the worst "parking crater," or largest number of ugly surface parking lots.

Parking Madness began with 23 submissions from as many states, all submitted by streetsblog.org readers. The website is a news source for people interested in city planning with an eye to sustainable transportation and livable communities.

The large number of entries promoted Schmitt to break the cities down into a March Madness-style tourney with 16 finalists in a single-elimination bracket.

Tulsa beat Philadelphia by virtue of the southern half of downtown which is described as almost entirely surface parking. It does note that the city council recently passed a moratorium on demolishing old buildings for parking, thanks to Stephen Lassiter of Bike Walk Tulsa.

Tulsa received 95 percent of the votes in that round and beat Cleveland, Ohio with 75 percent to make the final four.  The city will measure up against Dallas, Houston and Milwaukee.

Check out the contest at streetsblog.org.