Preserving Parking Lots
One of the biggest categories of assets that need to be protected are parking lots, which is why there is a Cape-wide concern about the destruction of parking lots because of erosion and storms. This concern is further heightened by the lack of adjacent land near many lots where new lots might be built; in many cases new lots would need to be built in a more remote location in conjunction with having to create infrastructure for alternative forms of transportation to get visitors to the beach like free shuttle services and a greater network of bike and walking paths.
Over the course of the National Seashore’s history, several parking lots have been destroyed or are gradually being destroyed by inundating sand, decreasing the percentage of available spaces. For example the Great Storm of 1978 destroyed the parking lot at Coast Guard beach in Eastham and the parking lot at Ballston beach was similarly affected by the Perfect Storm of 1991, losing one fifth of the total number of spots.
Newcomb Hollow beach parking lot.
White Crest beach parking lot.
Some currently problematic parking lots are Newcomb Hollow, White Crest Beach, Le Counts Hollow, Nauset, Head of the Meadow and Long Nook, Herring Cove, and Ballston Beach. You can see how close these parking lots are beach in the two below images.
