Feet First, a not for profit organization which encourages walking and promotes the rights and interests of pedestrians, is getting ready for this year’s PARK(ing) Day on Friday, Sept. 18.
PARK(ing) Day began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art collective, converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in an area of San Francisco that is underserved by public open space. The event was initially devised as a creative exploration of how urban public space is allocated and used.
Here’s one of Greenwood’s two PARK(ing) spots last year in front of the Pig ‘N Whistle.
The now international event is hosted as far away as Australia. Seattle’s first PARK(ing) Day event was in 2007 with 4 PARK(ing) spots. In 2008 there were 32. This year, organizers hope to hit at least 50 spots.
People develop park(ing) day parks for many different reasons and with many different themes. Some want to reclaim public space for a park. Others want to express some local character and spice up the neighborhood. And others want to raise awareness of an important issue.
Putting together a parking space is easy and simple enough but does takes a little bit of planning and work. Feet First, Trust for Public Lands, and Seattle Parks Foundation are here to help you through. You can find lots more information and photos on http://my.parkingday.org and we have created a Seattle group where we will post lots of information.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Iron City Mike // Jul 8, 2009 at 7:51 am
Great, lets block perfectly good spaces and make the already difficult parking in the city worsse. Next let’s close a lane of the freeway just for fun!
2 Seattlejo // Jul 8, 2009 at 8:36 am
@IronCityMike They closed Greenwood during the Summer Streets event, and people complained about rerouted traffic.
3 Stupid Hippie // Jul 8, 2009 at 9:12 am
Isn’t this wonderful! Everyone needs to ride bikes and eat tofu. Otherwise you are drowning Bangladeshis!
Parking = genocide
4 tiktok // Jul 8, 2009 at 9:40 am
As long as they keep feeding the meter, the space is really theirs to do what they will.
And yes, we in the Cycle Reich will eventually control all your actions.
5 Iron City Mike // Jul 8, 2009 at 10:46 am
Isn’t feeding meters illegal? I know it is in some states – i.e. you can park for whatever the max is, say 2 hours, but have to move your car after that even if you add more money to the meter
6 MichaelSnyder // Jul 8, 2009 at 11:06 am
You store your car on our public property all year round, why can’t I put a sofa or garden on our public property for one day?
It is just an experiment to allow us to think about things in a slightly different way.
What if we turned all of the on-street parking into vegetable gardens? Would we need to import food from thousands of miles away?
What if we used this space for a community gathering area and got to know our neighbors?
It isn’t just bicycling and tofu, it is about imagining that the way things currently are isn’t the way they have to stay.
7 Northa85th // Jul 8, 2009 at 11:50 am
ICM, ever think that cars shouldn’t be the center of our universe? How many people that park in Greenwood Center are coming from less than a mile or two away? I’d bet it’s many. They could stand to walk or take the bus so that a public space can be used for something other than internal combustion.
8 Whopper // Jul 8, 2009 at 1:35 pm
” They could stand to walk or take the bus”
Says who, you? What right do you have to tell me whether I can should walk or drive?
9 Northa85th // Jul 8, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Don’t pick a fight, Whopper. Play nice.
10 Iron City Mike // Jul 8, 2009 at 4:48 pm
LOL Getting a rise out of this crowd is like shooting fish in a barrel
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