Walk Oakland Bike Oakland is excited to be celebrating Park(ing) Day in Oakland on September 21 for the 3rd year in a row.

What is Park(ing) Day?

Park(ing) Day is an annual worldwide event when people transform a typical on-street parking space into a temporary mini-park or plaza for a few hours on a Friday afternoon. The project began in 2005 when Rebar converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in an area of San Francisco that is underserved by public open space. Since then, it has grown as an “open source” project into a world wide event on the Third Friday in September. Although many installations go with the basic “tree-bench-sod,” the idea has been adapted to address a variety of social issues in diverse urban contexts around the world. Park(ing) Day is one of the inspirations for the parklets that have been created in cities from San Francisco to New York and that are in the pilot stage here in Oakland.

Participants have built interventions ranging from free health clinics, urban farming and ecology demonstrations, political seminars, art installations, free bike repair shops and even a wedding ceremony! Click through the presentation above or check out more photos on flickr in the WorldParkingDay pool.

Park(ing) Day in Oakland

Walk Oakland Bike Oakland has promoted Park(ing) Day and organized spaces since 2010, but individual groups and businesses have been participating in Oakland since 2008. Park(ing) Day has been a great catalyst for the growth of more permanent “parklets” around the country and last year WOBO used the event to increase demand for parklets and catalyze the City to create a pilot parklet program in Oakland. Many of the pilot parklet applicants had participated in Park(ing) Day in the past.

This year, Park(ing) Day is a great opportunity to highlight the new parklet program (hopefully with actual parklets on the ground), and promote the new program to businesses and neighborhoods that have not yet heard of it or participated in the past – specifically neighborhoods outside of North and Downtown Oakland and Lakeshore.

Join the fun!

Come to the Park(ing) Day volunteer meeting August 9 to help us plan the best Park(ing) Day yet! RSVP here.

Signup to host a Park(ing) Day spot in Oakland, join the official Park(ing) Day network, or download Rebar‘s Parking Day Manual for more tips and tricks for creating a Park(ing) Day spot.