It's no secret that St. Louis has car problems. On one hand, many drivers here are schmucks who ignore turning lanes and treat pedestrians like Mario Kart powerups. This summer, however, it's parking infrastructure that's put city officials and Fair St. Louis organizers into a panic.
The construction of the new Gateway Arch grounds has already forced Fair St. Louis to relocate to Forest Park, and last month the city announced that all street parking in Forest Park would be completely closed during the festival (July 3-5). As for the city itself, the treasurer's office is hiring an outside consultant to sort out of the mess of meters and parking downtown.
So in preparation for what could be the most parking-afflicted summer in recent memory, we present the eight worst places to park in St. Louis city and county. (If you've got your own list of horrible parking spots, let us know in the comments section.)
See also: St. Louis Has the 8th Worst Potholes in the U.S.
1. Forest Park As mentioned above, the city's decision to block off all the free street parking in Forest Park has thrown Fair St. Louis into a scramble. Festival spokeswoman Julie Hauser says a comprehensive parking plan will be released soon, but we can't imagine anything that can avert the imminent parking massacre for Forest Park's tens of thousands of visitors this Independence Day weekend.
To be clear, we're not saying that it's normally a joy to park at the art museum or the zoo: The winding roads with bumper-to-bumper traffic and filled-to-capacity parking lots can turn any weekend-afternoon outing into an endless journey of torture. Not only does it royally suck, but chances are you have a screaming child in tow to make the experience all the more awful.
2. Brentwood Promenade Another parking nightmare, the Brentwood Promenade contains a handful of family-friendly stores like Target, Trader Joe's and Bed Bath & Beyond. Weekday shoppers can find a bounty of open parking spaces, but as the weekend arrives it becomes hell on earth. No amount of cheap Target flatware is worth the pain of navigating the madness of the Promenade's continent-sized parking lot on a Saturday. Our advice? Order some pizza and let someone else risk vehicular hippie-slaughter for a bag of organic Tuscan kale from Trader Joe's.
Continue for more terrible places to park.
