The building that I work in does not have parking available for staff. This isn't surprising, as the entire city is severely limited when it comes to parking in general. In our prior location we were privy to use of the parking garage attached to the building; however, that came at a cost of $5/day just to park there (equating to an astronomical $100/month). When our office moved this spring, I was delighted to find that the parking lot across the street from our new office cost merely $2.80/day to park in! At $56/month, I was elated to have an extra $44/month in my bank account.
As luck would have it, my "new" parking lot was in the path of impending road construction. For a week I was greeted daily with signs warning me that the parking lot would be closed the next day. I would seek out alternative parking only to find, upon arriving at the office, that the lot had not actually been closed. After repeating this process near daily for over a week, I decided to park on an unmetered side street across town, and walk to work from there.
What started as an effort to find suitable parking while "my" parking lot was closed, soon turned into a habit and I have since been parking across town and walking the half mile to work each morning, and back again in the afternoon. The inconvenience of parking that far away was rewarded though, I didn't spend anything on parking in the month of August!!
Granted, it's not quite as convenient as parking across the street, but the weather has been gorgeous and the walk has been quite enjoyable. I'm not sure that I'll be able to say the same thing when the cold winter months hit, but in the meantime I'll be parking across town until Old Man Winter makes a fierce appearance here in Vermont.
