Park(ing) Day 2014: Civic Pride Creator or Prospecting Opportunity?

Around the world, the third Friday in September marks the arrival of Park(ing) Day. Celebrating 10 years of innovation, Park(ing) Day originated in San Francisco from an unsanctioned experiment invented by an art and design studio called Rebar. 

Park(ing) Day is about collaboration with organizations and individuals to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into “Park(ing) spaces.” This process of creating temporary public places in an unusual location, the street, challenges how we prioritize public space in our communities and further accentuates the disproportionate role of the automobile in the public space equation. 

The original vision of PARK(ing) Day, as per parkingday.org, is “to challenge the existing notions of public urban space and empower people to help redefine space to suit specific community needs.” The focus is on reclaiming streets for people, and having dialogue about how public space is created and allocated in our communities. The PARK(ing) Day Manual from Rebar notes their hopes that this event cultivates our sense of civic pride and encourages us to consider the potential of the citizen’s role in conceiving, building and improving our local urban environments.

Here in Washington, DC, Park(ing) Day consisted of approximately 20 sanctioned spots. DC requires both a permit ($50 plus a $5 technology fee) as well as paying the meter. The city also requires general liability insurance for the space. That may explain the seeming lack of citizen-led Park(ing) Day spaces in DC.

There were two noteworthy Park(ing) Day spaces in Georgetown, sponsored by the Georgetown Business Improvement District (BID). The BID focused on the spaces changing the way people interact with the streets. With the comfortable and interesting seating options and absence of advertising, these spaces were great for hanging out and really encouraged chatting and getting to know people.  Of the seven spaces I visited, these were the only two that I felt captured a nugget of the mission. These two spaces were in heavily car congested areas where the pedestrian has a tough time finding a spot to breathe, literally. The BID most likely hopes to work with the community long term to create parklets in these areas to provide people much-needed space amongst the sea of cars and traffic in Georgetown. 

Then there was the Zipcar Park(ing) day space(s). This was different from the others. First off, they got a permit for two consecutive parking spots for the day and they cleverly extended it to three by parking their ZipCar Van in the spot adjoining their Park(ing) Day spread. 

A review of the DC permit process for Park(ing) day reveals the requirement for the applicant to provide a rather detailed park concept as well as a sketch of the site design.  This means that the DDOT most likely knew and approved of what Zipcar was up to that day in their Park(ing) Day space: advertising and pitching their business. Or – Zipcar didn’t include in the permit process the fine details of their intended design. 

Zipcar cleverly selected I Street NW as their 2-spot Park(ing) Day location. This location is on the fringe of the George Washington University campus on a busy block next to the Foggy Bottom Metro. One of their permitted spots demonstrated what you might expect from this event: AstroTurf with some bright and comfy chairs. They also had corn hole available. 

The other Zipcar spot was the interesting specimen. There were some Zipcar employees manning a table, handing out Zipcar advertising pieces and tchotchkes - ready to tell you about their service and how to get signed up. As I am already a Zipcar member, I didn’t get too involved in this part of the park, however, I did hear a passerby ask if he could take a Red Bull from the ice cold Red Bull display and the Zipcar employee said, “Not unless you hear my pitch first.” 

Zipcar may have been reclaiming the streets, but they were also paying the permit and parking meter fee to have a new space to further prospect for memberships. Should Park(ing) day be about advertising? Does the message of what the parking spot transformation symbolizes get lost in the advertising fray? 

Gizmodo.com posted an article in 2013 called Why We Don’t Need Parking Day

Anymore. While I don’t agree with many of the reasons this article lists for why we don’t need this event anymore, I do find myself asking, what exactly are we accomplishing? Challenging how we prioritize public space is really important and whether a company or a group of people in a community organize the Park(ing) Day space, this challenge can still be realized.  

But what happened to people creating these spaces? Have we killed the heart of this thing with sanctioning, additional fees, and insurance red tape? I am most concerned with what happened to community in all of this. Rebar was focused on empowering people to redefine space to suit community needs. And speaking of spatial needs or lack thereof, I also visited a Park(ing) Day space close to a park. I believe the space was selected in order to advertise more efficiently. More food for thought: the seven spaces I was able to visit were in the more affluent areas of the city. 

So, did Park(ing) Day in DC cultivate a sense of civic pride? Were people prominently in the equation of these temporary spaces? They didn’t seem to be designing or planning these temporary Park(ing) Day spaces. They weren’t exactly mauling each other to spend time in the spaces either.  Maybe more people would come out for Park(ing) Day if they recognized themselves in the process of creating these temporary public spaces.  

#parkingdaydc

#parkingday