Transitioning from parking spaces to public spaces

Published Sep 20, 2024  •  4 minute read

A rendering of the pop-up seating and socializing area that TMU students are working on for this year’s Park(ing) Day in Toronto.

Park(ing) Day Toronto, held this weekend from Sept. 20 to 22, features 30 locations where spots for cars will instead be used as places for people

Article content

If any one of us was asked to describe the ideal city of the future, it’s reasonable to assume that few if any would say that as a starting point, we need to set aside half of the downtown core for cars.

And yet that’s the reality of far too many North American cities today, with some urban centres such as Houston devoting over 60 per cent of its footprint to a combination of streets and parking.

Apart from the pollution and noise associated with a car-centric city, less obvious is the spatial imbalance caused by not having enough land to devote to such essential amenities as parks, playgrounds, grocery stores and other essential shops and services.

This is space that in an ideal world residents can walk to, find things they need, or to just sit down in to relax or have a conversation with a friend or neighbour. All of which makes a city more liveable.

Article content

Article content

So what if even just temporarily, our parking spaces became public places? This weekend in select locations in Toronto and in a growing number of cities from around the world, from San Francisco to Berlin, that’s precisely what’s going to happen.

Now in it’s third year, Park(ing) Day Toronto is serving as the catalyst for the creation of as many as 30 or more installations, whereby spots for cars will instead be used as places for people.

Pop-ups ranging from a “pickling park” that spotlights the issue of food security to an onsite tailoring and alteration service focusing on adaptive reuse of clothing, a HIIT class, dance and music performances, an outdoor street garden, a planting workshop and a beading workstation.

Article content

“It’s really about community building,” observes Heather Dubbeldam, principal of Dubbeldam Architecture + Design, whose firm in partnership with SvN Architects + Planners, Arup Canada, DTAH and MASSIVart are spearheading the Park(ing) Day Toronto initiative.

But not just community building she is quick to emphasize. “It’s about improving the quality of our public space in the city (and) making our public spaces… better for pedestrians.”

While Park(ing) Day Toronto is only on for this weekend from Friday, September 20 through Sunday, September 22, Dubbeldam hopes the event serves as a catalyst for future positive outcomes in a city that remains heavily dominated by cars.

“It’s a movement to try and shake things up a little bit and show people what is possible,” she says. And… hopefully the city sees this (event) as a way to look at other possibilities for these spaces.” Including the fact that if residents had better access to essential needs closer to home, they’d become less car dependent.

Article content

Kevin McIntosh, Dubbeldam Architecture + Design’s director of business development observes that just as the Toronto group was inspired by other cities such as San Francisco, which launched the first Park(ing) installation back in 2005, other major Canadian cities will also learn from this initiative and hop on board in the coming years.

“That’s why (cities such as) Ottawa are a potential for next year. We (already) have Newmarket and Mississauga participating in Park(ing) Day Toronto. So we’ve kind of blurred the boundaries a little bit unexpectedly… we didn’t expect people from outside of Toronto to apply for a grant that is Toronto specific, but it did happen.”

The grant McIntosh refers to is a $6,000 fund the above-mentioned companies contributed to, whereby up to $500 has been given in support of community members wishing to participate in the event to help undercut their costs.

Article content

And those funds have clearly catalyzed Toronto Park(ing) Day this year, with 12 groups taking advantage, helping to bump up the total number of installs to (as previously mentioned) approximately 30 locations, compared to five from last year.

And in keeping with the worldwide Park(ing) Day “how to” guidelines, the circularity of each spot will be top of mind. “A really big part of this program is environmental sustainability,” observes Dubbeldam.

“We made (participants) sign an agreement that for their installation, everything that was used would either be repurposed, returned, donated or come from reclaimed materials.”

To learn more about Park(ing) Day Toronto, including a 2024 Site Map should you wish to see some of them firsthand, go to www.parkingdaytoronto.ca.

As the site eloquently observes “ideas won’t change the world unless they are put into action.”

Let’s hope this weekend’s ideas are a source of inspiration for urban leaders and residents everywhere, helping us to rethink how we use our streets in the coming years and taking us one step closer to that ideal city of the future.

Mark Wessel lives in Ridgeway, Ont. and is a passionate advocate for living more sustainably at home and in the greater community. Visit www.markdouglaswessel.com

Article content