Park(ing) Day 2013: DC Edition

There’s only one reason to be inside on a beautiful day like today, and that is to upload pictures of this beautiful day. More to the point, it’s Park(ing) Day, a celebration of better uses for on-street parking spaces. All over this city, and in cities around the country, temporary parklets have sprung up in spaces normally reserved for car storage. They’re a real-life illustration of how much more vibrant our cities could be if we let people take up street space instead of cars.

Here are a few scenes from DC’s Park(ing) Day this morning. Send in pictures from your own Park(ing) Day!

At the Washington Area Bicyclist Association Park(ing) Day installation, Bike Ambassadors provided a little education to drivers.
WABA's "photo booth" for bike portraits.

Steve Davis of Transportation for America's cornhole-in-one at the Smart Growth America installation at 17th and M Streets NW.
Cornhole wasn't all the SGA parklet had going for it. Who doesn't love sidewalk chalk and miniature cardboard cityscapes?
Local nonprofit Casey Trees pretty much won Park(ing) Day with their three-parking-space parklet, free watermelon samples, picnic tables, temporary bike parking, and Plingo board.
What's a plingo board, you ask? This is a plingo board.

(All photos by yours truly.)

How was your Park(ing) Day? We can’t wait to see your pictures.

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Park(ing) Day Scenes From Coast to Coast

By Angie Schmitt |
Today is a very fun day in cities around the U.S., when advocates for better public spaces unleash their imaginations on the dreary places where we normally store cars. Park(ing) Day is “an annual worldwide event where artists, designers and citizens transform metered parking spots into temporary public parks,” according to its organizers. Below we are showcasing […]

Park(ing) Day Scenes From Around the United States

By Angie Schmitt |
It was only eight years ago that the international movement known as Park(ing) Day got started (in San Francisco or New York, depending on whom you ask). In a short time, this fun way to demonstrate the squandered potential of ordinary parking spaces has become a global phenomenon. Today, in cities across the United States […]

Park(ing) Day Around the U.S.

By Angie Schmitt |
It’s International Park(ing) Day, when people all over the world transform their cities’ most dead boring places — parking spaces — into temporary, creative community gathering places. We hope you got a chance to play, relax or socialize in a temporary park in your city today. But even if you didn’t, you can enjoy them […]

Highlights From Park(ing) Day Around the Globe

By Angie Schmitt |
Today is Park(ing) Day — a day to demonstrate how scarce street space can do so much more than store parked cars. Around the world, people are setting up camp in parking spots and turning them into public spaces. Here are some of the fun and creative installations we’ve come across on social media. Just for fun, vote for […]

In San Francisco: People, Parklets, and Pavement to Parks

By Clarence Eckerson Jr. |
In San Francisco, the Pavement to Parks program has launched an initiative that may someday alter the way many dense U.S. cities decide to treat the streets of their commercial strips. Taking the PARK(ing) Day concept to a more permanent, logical level, the Parklets Program has begun experimenting with trial spaces allowing businesses to convert […]