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PARK(ing) Day Parks Reclaim Seattle Streets

News   September 17, 2010 at 1:53 pm Josh Cohen


Cascade Land Conservancy/Feet First park along 2nd Ave.

As I stood at 2nd Ave between Union and University talking to PARK(ing) Day organizer Max Hepp-Buchanan, a big white pickup truck rolled to a stop next to the temporary park installation. The driver rolled down the window and hollered, “What are you guys doing here?”

An enthusiastic park volunteer yelled back, “It’s PARK(ing) Day!”

“Nope, you’re being a bunch of faggots,” the truck driver countered as he drove away.

Clearly not everyone is excited about PARK(ing) Day, an annual event at which volunteers convert metered parking spaces into temporary, miniature public parks. But since it began in San Francisco in 2005 (with a single converted park), PARK(ing) Day has grown into an international movement. Seattle joined in three years ago with four parks. Last year, 140 cities in 21 countries hosted a combined total of 744 parks (Seattle had 45).


Cascade Bicycle Club’s park on Union St.

I swung by a handful of Seattle’s nearly 70 parks this morning. They featured croquet and bocce, handouts and info booths from green urbanist types such as Alleycat Acres, the Cascade Land Conservancy, Streets for All Seattle, and Feet First. Cascade Bicycle Club’s park featured a bike-powered smoothie blender (unfortunately, it wasn’t in action when I was there: No smoothies for BikeNerd).

“PARK(ing) Day is really just about taking space that’s usually about cars and making it about people,” said Hepp-Buchanan.

According to Hepp-Buchanan, 20 percent of land in the average American city is dedicated to cars, in the form of public parking and roads. In Seattle, that figure is 28 percent.


Craig Benjamin

Streets For All Seattle’s Craig Benjamin says PARK(ing) Day is an attempt to rethink public space. “It comes back to a basic question: Who are the streets for? It’s public space, it’s everyones right of way.”

Hepp-Buchanan hopes PARK(ing) day will help spark people’s imaginations. “Even though it’s only for one day, it gives Seattle a taste of what our city could be like with more dedicated public land and more public parks.”

PARK(ing) Day parks will be up until 3 pm today. A post-PARK(ing) Day party will be held at 6 pm in the converted parking lot at the corner of Belmont and Pine on Capitol Hill.


  • Perfect Voter

    I hope they pay the metered rate for “parking” on these parking spaces.

  • http://spifflines.blogspot.com/ John Bailo

    All this does is force some poor person to have to park in an expensive garage.

    Another step down on the Public by the Ruling Class Greens.

  • Barleywine

    I wish you’d snapped the truck dude and posted it here.

  • CarsCarsEverywhere

    Hey John, want to park your car on Burke-Gilman trail with me?

  • Yay

    I believe they do. It probably comes out to more than the parking rate, with permitting costs.

  • Grover

    What is the point of this stupid exercise? “Reclaim Seattle streets”? You mean all Seattle streets used to be parks, and they were turned into streets? LOL

    “Who are the streets for?” What a stupid question. They are for moving goods and people in vehicles, obviously. Also for fire engines, amublances, police cars, mail trucks, etc. If you live in Seattle, you get huge benefits from Seattle’s streets.

    Who are sidewalks for? If you can’t figure out who streets are for, how about taking a stab at sidewalks?

    Just a few days ago, our genius mayor said he wants to raise parking rates on downtown streets, supposedly so parking spots will be easier to find, and drivers won’t have to circle around blocks looking for an open parking spot. Taking parking spots for silly little miniature “parks” really helps advance that cause, doesn’t it? I bet it was much easier to find a parking spot on a downtown street today, with those tiny “parks reclaiming the streets.”

  • http://spifflines.blogspot.com/ John Bailo

    No, but I love the new small parking lot at the trail head of the Soos Creek extension.

    This makes the trail that much more accessible to people who want to tote their bikes and toddlers inside of SUVs.

  • Josh C

    Didn’t have the camera out at the time, unfortunately.

  • http://spifflines.blogspot.com/ John Bailo

    There are daily busloads of preschoolers wanting to park or drop off kids for Benaroya and the Art Museum. These Green Grinches stole their low cost and accessible parking.

  • too embarrased to say

    2nd and third paragraphs…. totally not funny, yet I can’t stop laughing.

  • awealthyundriver

    If you can afford a car, you can afford a garage.

  • awealthyundriver

    that’s what load zones are for.

  • misha

    Um, the article made it pretty clear that the only person who would have used that parking spot is a suburban homophobe in a pickup truck going to Cowgirls Inc before driving home drunk.

    Instead, it got used by local people having a good time. A definite better use of public land.

  • misha

    “Driving your SUV to the bike trail” just surpassed “Drive-thru Krispy Kreme” as the most suburban phrase in the English language.

  • Johns

    Absolutely yes, it does. Even with the discount the City offers.

  • Johns

    There were a couple of those folks out today, unfortunately. Newsworthy I suppose, but the bigger story by far was all the folks who stopped by the spaces and had a great time.

  • http://spifflines.blogspot.com/ John Bailo

    Welcome to the 21st century, trog.

  • http://spifflines.blogspot.com/ John Bailo

    I guess you’re right. The avenues of downtown Seattle seem pretty much empty all day long anyway. More evidence of depopulation and the failure of density.

  • http://spifflines.blogspot.com/ John Bailo

    I guess you’re right. The avenues of downtown Seattle seem pretty much empty all day long anyway. More evidence of depopulation and the failure of density.

  • MichaelSnyder

    A few fun facts:
    1. Seattle has fewer parks and fewer acres of park land than similar cities.
    2. As a result of #1, Seattle is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per lot to buy one lot at a time for pocket parks and p-patches.
    3. Around 20% of the land in most cities is devoted to transportation.
    4. On-street parking is almost always under-cutting the private parking lot prices, causing people to drive around the block several times looking for a parking space before they go park in a garage which increases congestion and pollution.
    5. In 2003 Seattle’s parking day had 7 spaces. In 2010, that has grown to 70+ spaces. That speaks to the desire that people in Seattle have to re-consider the use of public space.

    This is just asking the question of the best use of public land. Is it truely the best use of a public resource to provide subsidized storage of private property, or should we have more parks and let the free market determine how much parking we need, where we need it, and how much it should cost? Is it wise to be collecting a few thousand dollars a year from a few parking spaces while paying a few hundred thousand dollars per year to buy the same amount of land for parks?

  • Anc

    I think you mean ‘late 20th.’

  • Barleywine

    @Misha

    I like the sentiment, but how do you get all that from:
    “a big white pickup truck” and
    “Nope, you’re being a bunch of faggots,”

    I mean, “suburban”?
    “Cowgirls”?
    “driving home drunk”?

    You’re either a profiler or a bigot.

  • Jakers

    #5 – or it speaks to the fact that people have less stuff to do, maybe because of the bad economy.
    http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-september-16-2010/rally-to-restore-sanity

    I don’t have a problem with letting free market decide things, but why not charge people the real costs of using a park and let free market decide that too?

  • Jakers

    Why is it that in our conversations about parking we refer to “cars” and not “pauses in trips” or “People and goods” like many insist on using similar terms but not “cars” when talking about the tunnel or the broader topic of transportation.

  • MVH

    John, is Seattle too crowded and parking-deprived or is it desolate and deserted?

  • Patrick McGrath

    There’s no divine law that says the space between curbs must be the sole domain of the automobile. For most of human history, the street was both the conduit for goods and services and a place for people to socialize. Too many cars, or cars that go too fast kill that latter function, and we live poorer lives as a result. Park(ing) day is about nudging that balance back a bit.

  • Ross

    Nothing John says makes any sense. Seattle is not dense at all, by most city standards. Everything he says just translates down to ‘ra ra i hate bicycles’

  • Ross

    Besides, it’s one day a year! One day to celebrate what things could be. Cars have those spaces the other 364 days, calm down.

  • Jakers

    If you have the time to bike, you have the time to get off the ferry last.

    http://www.publicola.net/2010/09/17/on-other-blogs-today-changing-times/

  • Ross

    Seattle actually dedicates about 28% of it’s land to transportation. Most of that being parking lots, most of which if my anecdotal observations mean anything, sit half full or empty most days unless there is some event going on.

    I don’t understand why can’t just have a few high density parking garages (with space for bikes too of course), let the city subsidize it and then start getting rid of those empty lots. Or building bike and bus lanes instead of on-street parking.

    City subsidized garage parking isn’t new, Vancouver (most livable city in North America by every official measure) already does it.

  • 2cents

    The car is a red herring in this meaningless protest. I you want parks push for parks. Seattle can barely afford the parks it has now. The Commons idea failed miserably. Now South Lake Union is filled with empty office buildings.

    If you want to do a real protest fight for those current vacant lots to be transformed into parks. Fight for the Viaduct to be put underground to free up park space on the existing footprint.

  • Jakers

    Really, most, meaning more than 50% is parking lots? Interesting, back that up with a link to something. Does that include private parking?

  • actually…

    actually seattle has pretty many parks.

  • Dmilusic

    It’s hard to reason with ignorance