Satellite parking lot

A Satellite Parking Lot is not as it might sound, where orbiting spacecraft park when their pilots have better things to do, unless you are talking about some areas near the Kennedy Space Center. No, Satellite Parking Lots are a byproduct of American society's fondness of driving their own car to the airport, and leaving it while they jet off to some distant city for several days. As a result of this love of driving to the airport, a large asphalt paved belt has developed around many of the nation's regionl airports known as the Satellite Parking Belt. It does not always take an airport to create sufficient demand for a Satellite Parking Lot, sometimes a stadium will do this as well. They are too far from the airport terminal or stadium to walk, so they are serviced by the ever-present shuttle bus.

Satellite Parking Lots must have the right conditions to grow. Ideal conditions for growth can be seen around many airports located near large cities in America. Airports too close to the city center tend to stunt the growth of these zones due to the lack of available land, such as the case near Reagan National Airport. In these cases, substitutes for these vital zones must be found. Since people must be able to drive and park at the airport at all costs, all parking lots near these hemmed in airports must grow vertically into parking garages. Large parking garages are also required at airports that already have well developed Satellite Parking Belts, to fulfill the needs of people who just want to visit the airport briefly, or who do not like shuttle busses. The only other known subsitute for the Satellite Parking Belt is Mass Transit, which is only used as a last resort in America.

Suburban airports near major cities usually host ideal conditions for developing Satellite Parking Belts. Land is generally more available, and due to the special nature of the environment around most large airports, there is usually already a belt of undervalued land near most airports. Recently, many industrial concerns have found these locations to be advantageous as well. Other requirements for development of a healthy Satellite Parking Belt are an abundance of roads and highways, which tend to sprout spontaneously around most major airports. At an airport with all of these conditions, such as BWI or Dulles, the Satellite Parking Belt can grow to many hundreds of acres in size, and nearly surround the affected airport.