No More Parking in BP

To the Bellingham Department of Parks and Recreation,

It was spring, my senior year of high school. My sister Devon went to Western as a student, and
with her experience she invited me and my father to come up so that she may show me around
this town that I would soon call home. The sun shined to give us the best day we could ask for,
and when we got to Boulevard Park, the sun gleamed its orange rays over the bay, and the warm
wind blew past us on the board walk. My sister took us here first because she knew that this
place means a lot to Bellingham, and this is true to the majority of Bellinghams residents. The
one moment which gave the day its only negative feelings was our journey to park at the park.
We raced back and forth for ten minutes until we came to a spot up the hill.

Parking Problems
Boulevard Park only holds one entrance from the main roads, and this proves problematic as on
the most beautiful days. These days host many people constantly coming into the park, and drive
on down seeing no spaces anywhere. The lot ends and drivers are forced to turn right around,
back to the entrance and onto the street where they are forced to find a way to turn around and
get back to the parking lot. These trials continue over and over again until they are lucky enough
to find a spot.
Parks are places for people to act as they might not at other places. Parks offer experiences that
dont have to be like the stressful everyday life that everyone possesses. We all has our stressful
responsibilities, whether it be school, our occupation, home, or our interactions with others. All
of these stressors arent provided by a park, especially Boulevard Park. Boulevard Park gives a
place to walk it out, to remove oneself from
the city and from work by just walking down
the flowing boardwalk.
Now, a park is surely built and kept up by the
Bellingham Parks and Rec Department for
the purpose of relieving lifes stress, so a
troublesome parking lot is absolutely not
optimal for this park. Parking is a lasting
strain, causing one to lose their expected time
at the park as they race back and forth
desperately. Its a total waste of time and a
waste of energy searching for a spot, to where
people have to change their plans and either go to another park or park in town and walk an extra
distance, which is not what people look to do on their day off, on their day of luxury. No one
wants to change their plans; people want a reliable method of accomplishing their tasks and
desires in an expectable manner. Boulevard Parks parking lots forces a difficult challenge in
making it to the park, making the idea of parking feel not even worth it

Throw It Away

Boulevard Park can easily make do without its parking lot. Its a big task, and definitely appears
to be a massive risk, but my belief tells me that it would bring a positive effect upon the park for
the town.
Public Opinion
The main problem with bad parking is that no one expects a parking lot it to be so horrible for
the park goers. People always make out their schedules and itineraries in their mind, yet they
unexpectedly discover that they have a car that they cant park where they wanted, ruining ones
entire plan. What would be best, I feel, is for people to simply expect and know that the park will
not provide parking. This way, people will come to the park with new reliable plans, especially
since finding the bus routes to take to Boulevard Park is not too difficult, with the internets help,
and shouldnt take much more incredible of a time to get to the park and back with a bus
compared to a car.
This may even turn out to be some sort of culture for the park over time. I see this feature being
special to Boulevard Park, and people will come to appreciate it as a fun part of the park.
Personally, I always find joy looking into my memories of making it to the places, rather than
being there. Its the complete other half of the experience. I love finding out bus routes, walking
down streets; there is plenty of excitement and fun in the journey that makes the experience of
going to Boulevard Park deep and complete.
To add on, Bellingham holds a great population which have usable access to the Bellingham bus
system. The United States Census Bureau provides that Bellingham had a population of
82,631persons in 2013, while the Western Washington University websites provides a quick-fact
pages including that WWU holds 15,332 students, meaning that about 18.5% of Bellinghams
population are WWU students, and 100% of Western
students receive unlimited bus fare through their Western
Card. This advertises to the large population of students
which would rather save money using the cities bus
system than drive, or even convince students to take
advantage of their free bus fare which they hold. This
population of students wont be effected to hard by the
removal of the parking lot, for they always can ride the
bus.
Taking a poll around the Sigma residence one Westerns
campus, I asked 50 students whether they own a car on
campus or if they use buses to get here they need to. In
this poll I came to learn that only 18% of this sample
owned cars on campus.
The vast majority of on-campus residents are first year students, showing that it is a great amount
of freshmen who dont have access to driving. This exhibits the fact that this demographic, which
is a big part of your park, would not be deterred by the absence of a parking lot. They are already
willing to take the bus trip to the park, and since this demographic is young and mostly new to

the city of Bellingham, they wont object the removal of the parking lot, and simply would grow
older, used to Boulevard Park and how it would be without parking.
Finances
According to home.costhelper.com, the cost to remove
asphalt paving runs roughly $2.50-$3.50 a square foot. I
also called Blacktop Inc. Asphalt and seal coating to ask
about the cost of maintaining pavement, and I was
informed that the cost of sealing asphalt can cost between
$0.50 to $1.00 per square foot. This sealing occurs about
every 5 years. I took this data and plotted it (to the left) to
show the cost of resealing asphalt over time compared to
the one time cost of removing it.
This plot now shows that the cost to maintain the asphalt
over time eventually exceeds to the one time cost from
removing the entire parking lot. On the plot is a yellow line which shows how the removal of a
parking lot is a onetime cost that doesnt accumulate. Also, the plot shows a red line, which
shows the accumulation of cost from having to maintain the asphalt over the years. These lines
eventually intersect, showing that the price of maintenance exceeds the price of removing the
parking lot once. This intersection occurs roughly twelve years now, and I know that this park is
going to prosper past this point. To include, this graph shows the price in dollars per square feet,
making it seem like a small amount, yet knowing the size of the lot removing the parking would
save thousands after about fifteen years and even more into the future.
If the parking lot were then gone, the space would be used for more park, and increasing the size
of the park makes it possible for more people to come. With more people coming to have their
time in the huge park, the popularity of the park would skyrocket. The reputation of the park will
make the business of The Woods Coffee much more prosperous, not to also mention the local
stores right around Boulevard Park which people will be walking past on their way to the park.
The shops will thrive and Bellinghams commercial businesses will prosper because of the park.
Environmental Effects
Boulevard Park has the potential to be a good example to the rest of the area and to the rest of the
world.
Pavement, first off, has been proven to be detrimental to the worlds heat problems, and an effect
known as the urban heat island effect has been realized. This basically tells us that urban areas
have become significantly hotter than surround rural areas, and pavement has the ability to
radiate its heat into the atmosphere, causing our climate to get hotter than naturally usual.
If Boulevard Park were to show its disagreement with pavement and its effect, this would be
inspiring and admired by the common people. The park will show its contribution to the reverse
of climate change and show the lack of need for such pavement to be used in urban areas.

With the lot removed from the park, there will be a much vaster
amount of grassy room for the park to own. This land will harbor
healthy vegetation such as grass and trees. This
vegetation will not only absorb the suns radiation and not emit as much heat
as pavement, but vegetation is renowned for its ability to produce clean are by
sucking in the nasty greenhouse carbon dioxide produced by urban areas.
This fresh air and vegetation will make the park gain a
better wilderness feeling by removing it from the
urban environment by providing park-goers with a cool, clean area full of the
life.

characteristic
worlds

Pavement also acts as an impervious surface, meaning that

it doesnt
allow rain water to absorb into it naturally as it does with soil.
This may
prove to be harmful to the environment, especially with the fact that
Boulevard Park
lays directly on Bellingham Bay, for impervious surfaces cause rain water to run off into nearby
bodies of water. This run-off carries with it oils and other biological contaminants into the
aquatic ecosystems and poisons the wildlife living among Bellingham.
With the removal of the parking lot, we know that park visitors will consequentially use buses
more often to make it to the park. With this, the park is again supporting a more environmentally
healthy method of transportation. According to the State of Delaware Division of Waste and
Hazardous Substances, buses are known to use 8.7% less energy per passenger mile when
compared to the average automobile. To include, buses produce just 20% as much carbon
monoxide as a single-occupant automobile does per passenger mile. Cars are a great contributor
to climate change, and rejecting the use of them as a means of getting to the park is a huge step
toward environmental cleanliness.

In All
The potential to become something even more amazing lays within Boulevard Park. Boulevard
Park is a place of relief for countless people; it is their heaven from the trials and tribulations in
life. These people will greatly benefit from the complete removal of the parking lot, and they
would come to enjoy this culture of the park. These people will make beautiful memories within
this park and with their journey to make there, and I know your Parks and Rec organization
wants to have this effect more than anything.
The people of Bellingham will come to admire this place, with your efforts to remove the parks
and your departments individual impact on the environment. Hordes of citizens will come to
support this park and what it stands for and its stubbornness against the societal need for parking
lots, for this worlds health does matters more than the convenience of parking.
Sincerely,
Jack Henry Clemens

Sources:

http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/07/13/no-more-pavement-the-problem-of-impervioussurfaces/
http://www.gotblacktop.com/
https://www.wwu.edu/about/quick-facts
http://www.census.gov/popest/about/terms.html
http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/dwhs/info/Pages/OzonePublicTrans.aspx