Atlantans Spend Two Days A Year Parking: Report

ATLANTA, GA — If it feels like you spend days looking for a parking place in and around Atlanta, a new survey says you're not wrong.

Atlanta drivers spend 50 hours a year, an average of eight minutes during every single trip, looking for somewhere to park, according to the survey by Inrix, a global company that provides parking and traffic data. That's enough to land Atlanta at No. 8 on the survey's list of cities where finding parking can be a chore.

New York ranked No. 1 on the list, with motorists there spending a whopping 107 hours — that's roughly 4 1/2 days — hunting down parking spots each year.

According to the survey, the extra time spent jockeying for a parking spot costs Atlanta drivers $1,043 a year. Citywide, that amounts to $251 million in lost time, Inrix says.

"Americans spend an incredible $72.7 billion searching for the elusive parking spot," said Bob Pishue, senior economist at INRIX. "Our country’s parking pain has widespread impact – on drivers, cities, the economy and the environment. Thankfully, it’s a problem that can be improved through education, technology and partnerships."

Inrix's survey of 6,000 drivers in 10 U.S. cities also revealed that lots of motorists make their decisions on where to go, or not go, based on parking.

Read the full results of the Inrix survey here.

A full 63 percent said they avoided driving to certain destinations because of the challenge finding parking there. Out of all respondents, 39 percent said they avoided certain shopping destinations because of parking, 27 percent said they avoided airports, 26 percent skipped leisure or sports activities and 21 percent opted out of commuting to work. Twenty percent of respondents even said they avoided driving to a doctor's office or hospital because of parking.

If there's any good news for metro Atlanta drivers in the survey's results, it's that the amount people pay directly to park here is relatively low compared to other major cities.

The results, which also were based on information from Inrix's database, showed that the average cost for two-hour parking in Atlanta is $6. That compares pretty favorably to cities like New York ($33), Boston, ($26), Chicago ($22), Washington D.C. ($18) and Los Angeles ($14).

According to the survey, all that time and money being sucked up by parking is taking a toll on drivers. Almost two-thirds of respondents (61%) said they've felt stressed out trying to find parking. Nearly half (42%) said they'd missed an appointment because of it and more than one in three (34%) said they'd abandoned a trip they'd already started due to parking problems.

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