March 25, 2021

Costco's extra-wide parking stalls

INTRO / SUMMARY

Costco puts extra space between their parking stalls which ensures cars are always centered in the extra-wide parking stall.

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Sometimes large box stores have the space to accommodate extra-large parking stalls in their lots. This makes for faster parking and easier loading of the car after shopping.

There are two general ways to create extra-wide parking stall layouts. The first is the obvious one, which is to increase the width of the parking stall. This is what I have seen most commonly.

The downside with this approach is that people do not always park precisely in the middle of the extra-wide parking stall.

People assume they parked correctly, long as they are between the lines. This can still result in two cars being close to each other, even in an extra-wide parking stall.

A second way to create an extra-wide parking stall is what I've seen Costco do. They improve upon the first approach by drawing a gap between each parking stall. This means that the parking stall itself remains around normal size, but there is extra padding between each parking stall. This ensures cars are reliably spread apart, and makes it much easier to load groceries through the side doors and get kids in and out of the vehicle.

I am a bit surprised that I haven't seen this approach to extra-wide parking stalls before. It is a beautiful parking experience, and everyone I've spoken to raves about the Costco lots with this type of layout.

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