789: Drive on a Parkway and Park on a Driveway Feb 4, 2017

It may seem odd to drive on a parkway and park on a driveway, but there is some reason to this. 'Parkways' were called such because long highways were and still are built with greenery along the side. In the 18th century, 'parking' meant planting trees and other such things, so the notion of a park being as different from the act of 'parking', now referring to making a car or any other moving object stationery, would only come around a while later, leading to the confusion of not parking in a parkway. The idea of parking on a driveway, on the other hand, made would also not have been sensible to the early drivers either. The first people to buy cars were usually wealthy and had sizable estates and had long driveways, the likes of which still exist in more rural areas. These led up to houses or barns where the cars could be parked, but without needing to park in the driveway. When more cars were affordable and the suburbs sprang up, driveways got shorter and shorter and people often had few other places to keep a car.