All Philadelphians Should Avoid This Parking Lot At Rush Hour

I think I just discovered the most wild parking lot in the entire City of Philadelphia. But it’s actually only REALLY bad for a few hours each day.

So, I'm warning you: you may very well want to avoid this one parking lot in Philadelphia every day during the evening rush hour.

What parking lot is it?

Well, as you may be able imagine it’s connected to the evening rush hour. It’s also combined with the dinner time rush, and that makes for a wicked combination.

Why is that?

That’s because I think the Trader Joe’s parking lot (at 2121 Market Street in Philadelphia) is wildly busy every afternoon.

It makes sense. It’s a nice grocery store in the city, but the parking lot only has about 30 spaces or so located behind the store (off of 22nd Street).

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In fact, in this image from Google StreetView you can see the line is several cars deep (almost backing up onto Market Street).

I walked by it the other night and saw how much the traffic backs up onto 22nd Street. We’re talking SEVERAL cars are forced to sit on the street waiting to enter the parking lot (which creates even more of a dangerous situation as the traffic pushes toward a busy intersection on Market Street).

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I’ll admit it: I don’t shop at this store.

But I was kind of amazed at how complicated the parking situation seemed to be during the busy evening rush hour.

Trader Joe’s seems to do their best to mitigate the problem too, by the way. They have an attendant guiding cars as spots open (and holding traffic so those cars aren’t circling the lot making it even worse).

The issue is with a parking lot that small, however, I have to assume that line moves pretty slowly. After all, grocery shopping at 5 p.m. on a weekday is NOT a quick task (no matter how much you prepare).

So I would personally say that whatever you do… don’t drive to this Philadelphia grocery store during rush hour.

It’s just not worth it. That's what mass transit is for, right?