"Shuttle Parking: Yes, It's Feasible"
Harold Olsen
If a church is out of parking space and can't buy any more, the only solution is to move, right? Wrong. At least some churches are proving that members can be talked into a shuttle system. One of the largest is Los Gatos Christian Church in California, where almost half the Sunday morning crowd parks at outlying shopping centers or schools and rides church-provided buses the rest of the way. This is a megachurch—three morning services that draw a total of 4,300. But the church campus has only 580 parking spaces, and the city won't allow more. About 100 close-in spaces are reserved for first- and second-time visitors. The other 480 fill up quickly. Meanwhile, a fleet of 12 buses—most owned by the church, some rented—circulate continually from 7:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., transporting 2,000 people each week. "Many actually find the buses more convenient," says Carl Palmer, outreach pastor. "Others do it out of concern to minister to visitors, not wanting to clog the lots we have." Still others say they enjoy the fellowship on the bus, since they see many of the same riders each week. In the beginning, the shuttle system was given high publicity at the church, with flyers on all windshields showing a map of the remote lots and pick-up times. By now, people have accepted shuttling as a fact of life. And the church continues to grow.
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