We took a full-day detour to answer this question from Heather Channon of South Burlington: 

"Who is using all of the park-and-ride lots?"

We spent 12 straight hours (yes, you read that correctly) at one of the busiest park and rides in the state, on one of the busiest travel days of the year, to find out. 

This is the story of our day — and all the people we met along the way. 

Check out photos from our experience, and a full episode transcript, in our web post. 

A big shoutout to a little-known podcast called This American Life, which has done two all-day (and all-night) episodes that inspired this piece: “24 Hours at the Golden Apple” and “Rest Stop.”

This episode was reported and produced by Josh Crane, Sabine Poux and Burgess Brown. Our intern is Camila Van Order González. Our Executive Producer is Angela Evancie. Theme music by Ty Gibbons; Other music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Special thanks to Elodie Reed, Amy Tatko, Tricia Roy, Jessica Fay, Betsy LeBlanc, Sara Walker, Robert Blandon, Terrance Sayers, Glenn Varricchione, Tricia Roy, Cliff Mix, Minda Stridsberg, Brendan Grahn, Jean Koegler, Brenda Rose, Pete Niarchos and everyone else we spoke to at the Richmond park and ride on Labor Day 2025. 

As always, our journalism is better when you’re a part of it:

Brave Little State is a production of Vermont Public and a proud member of the NPR Network.