Throwback Thursday: Park(ing) Day
Tomorrow, Friday, is the third Friday of September which makes it Park(ing) Day. Three years ago, local urbanist, Howard Blackson made this happen:
Tomorrow, Downtown Partnership is planning on doing some events to celebrate Park(ing) Day at 4th and Market and 5th and Island. Stop by and check it out.
What is Park(ing) Day? It is a way to repurpose and re-imagine a metered parking spot for a few hours on a single day in September.
A metered parking spot is an inexpensive short-term lease for a plot of precious urban real estate. What is the range of possibilities for creativity in a space usually dedicated to the storage of a private vehicle?
The introduction to the Park(ing) Day manual begins as follows:
The vast majority of outdoor urban space is dedicated to the private vehicle, while only a fraction of that land is allocated to open space for people.
That range of repurposing the outdoor urban space is plentiful. By temporarily testing the range of possibilities, like on Park(ing) Day, we can demonstrate how much more we can do with our city’s public spaces. For example, we can accommodate more commuters by converting curbside parking to bike lanes, we could put our roads on a diet and create parking protected bike lanes so that all road users can contribute toward a calming effect on our main streets instead of simply treating our main streets like speeding thoroughfares that are scary to walk or bike along. We can also repurpose vehicle parking spaces, our public spaces, into parklets that serve as gathering spaces for everyone instead of simply using curbside spaces as a storage spots for private vehicles.
Since that September back in 2012, San Diego has become home to two permanent parklets. The first one opened on August 2013 at Cafe Calabria, and the second by Mama’s Lebanese last year, in September.
Repurposing curbside vehicle spots has also resulted in a handful of bike corrals, or bicycle parking spaces, such as on Adams Avenue by Cantina Mayahuel, in the College Area by Living Room Cafe, and another outside Modern Times Brewery at 30th and Upas.
But San Diego has so much further to go. The never ending demand for curbside parking defeated the louder demand for safe streets in Uptown earlier this year, and the city’s desire to build a bypass bridge and a parking garage to facilitate even more vehicular traffic into the iconic Balboa Park, just got the green light from California’s highest court.
I hope the photo above serves as an inspiration. Opening up public spaces for people, instead of vehicles, is a higher goal to aspire to. San Diego isn’t ready to go there yet. But I hope it one day will be.