PARK(ing) Day: A Nation in full decline turns to the circus...

[4est_4est_Gump]

The Progressive War on Parking
Peter Wilson
September 19, 2012

Mark your calendars: September 21 is international PARK(ing) Day, described as "annual open-source global event where citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into 'PARK(ing)' spaces." Get it? The place you "park" your car becomes a "park." It's a postmodernist play on words that destabilizes the patriarchal hegemony of language. A better name might be "No Parking Day," since the intent -- or at very least, the obvious consequence -- of this and other activities is to attack automobile use by nibbling away at the supply of parking spaces.

A candid discussion of restricting parking appears in the Cambridge (Mass.) Climate Protection Plan:

Strategy 3: Reduce the Amount of Motor Vehicle Travel through Parking Incentives and Restrictions. [...] Studies indicate that parking restrictions are by far the most effective way to reduce driving, but they tend to be unpopular and therefore difficult to implement. Because most residents do not have off-street parking and very little space is available to create more parking, there are built-in constraints on residential parking.

Translation: we'd like to eliminate on-street parking to force everyone to take public transportation, but residents who have to store their cars on the street would get mad.

One strategy to get around public opposition is to reduce parking progressively, a little bit at a time, so that parking shortages seem like the fault of selfish drivers who won't abandon their cars. PARK(ing) Day, given that it takes place on one day a year, poses only a minor inconvenience for nearby businesses, but its larger goal is to delegitimize the parking space, to prepare a favorable climate for the gradual reduction of parking.

According to parkingday.org, the project began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio, created what they describe as a "spatial meme" by installing sod, a park bench, and a potted tree in a parking space in downtown San Francisco. In 2011, the event included 975 PARKS in 162 cities in 35 countries.

The organizers published a Manifesto (downloadable here) to describe their revolutionary act:

Absurdity, authenticity, generosity and a tactical approach have been the hallmarks of PARK(ing) Day... Rebar's thinking as much as anything else has been the sense of niche, loophole and opportunity. These tantalizing gaps in the urban structure-these necessary pieces of the urban structure, as long as that structure is generated by strategic forces seated in power and authority...challeng[e] the existing value system encoded within this humble, everyday space. [...] By providing a new venue for any kind of unmet need, re-valued parking spaces became instrumental in redefining "necessity." Thus the creative act literally "takes" place-that is, it claims a new physical and cultural territory for the social and artistic realm.

More from the Manifesto:

[PARK(ing) Day provides] a temporary generative territory for unscripted social interaction, where experimental forms of playful and creative human social behavior are cultivated and allowed to emerge, unmediated and unshackled by commercial imperatives... PARK(ing) Day offers an experiential critique of the hypercommercial public realm. [...]

It is only by the tacit undervaluing of certain activities (such as, say, play or eating or socializing) that other activities (such as parking and driving) can thrive.

If you scrape away the postmodernist gobbledygook, Rebar is saying that the street is a public space unfairly coopted by private automobiles. By adding new open space in the form of "re-valued" parking spaces, we will remedy the hypercommercialization of our urban landscapes.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/the_progressive_war_on_parking.html

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

PARK(ing) Day is temporary, but cities like Cambridge are working on permanent parking restrictions. For instance, rather than requiring commercial projects to guarantee sufficient parking to accommodate the traffic generated, the City is pursuing an opposite strategy:

In February 2001, the city council passed comprehensive new zoning measures, including some designed to reduce the traffic impacts of new development. These include reducing parking at new developments.

An early successful effort to reduce the amount of parking for new commercial development was the City's work with the developer of the Galleria Mall to reduce parking and institute a shuttle bus that runs from the mall to the Kendall Square Red Line station.

Recently Cambridge has been installing bike racks, normally placed on sidewalks, out on the street, removing parking spots, usually in the busiest commercial locations.
Traffic calming -- the construction of traffic islands, road bumps, and the like -- has been promoted by appealing to the noble goal of improving pedestrian safety. At the same time, it adds to vehicle congestion by narrowing travel lanes and replacing parking spaces with curb extensions.

Fat-bottom girls...

GET ON YOUR BIKES AND RIDE!!!​

 

[mercury14]

So is this an article you endorse?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Less is always more!

Cambridge also plans to increase zoned parking for residents, to eliminate spaces for, say, someone from Somerville who wants to park near the independent gourmet cheese shop up the street from me. If the City succeeds in these efforts, ironically, it will only push people out of dense urban areas toward supermarkets and big-box stores with parking lots.

The next time you're looking for a parking space, remember that there are people who think the solution is to reduce parking even more, so next time you'll leave the car at home.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

So is this an article you endorse?

So you cannot discuss the topic without knowing what to attack, the article or me?



Typical Democratic behavior. You should rename yourself MERCURY14...

 

[mercury14]

So you cannot discuss the topic without knowing what to attack, the article or me?



Typical Democratic behavior. You should rename yourself MERCURY14...

If you don't have a stance on the article why would we discuss it?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I see that you don't want to discuss it, one again, I am the star of your thought...


Rent-free.

 

[mercury14]

I see that you don't want to discuss it, one again, I am the star of your thought...


Rent-free.

What would be the point of discussing something with one who conceals his position?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Oh, maybe you might find someone else wanting to discuss the issue and then maybe I might be drawn into a conversation instead of admitting that I have learned nothing in twelve years here by beginning a thread innocently as if I didn't know that you and Throb were sitting out there salivating waiting to jump upon my every utterance...


Did you check the doom and gloom thread? or is it getting a little too doomy and gloomy.

I left some real choice gambits there this morning for you two and any other Democrats that might be up this time of the morning...

 

[Bidin~Time]

Less is always more!

Oh wait, will there be rural bus service for those of us who live in the boonies?

Will the driver help me unload my groceries?

How often will the bus run? Will I be home before dark?

 

[rosco rathbone]

Some day I'm going to make a list of all the arbitrary items that have been divided up along culture-war battle lines. Cats-liberal. Dogs-conservative, like that.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Some day I'm going to make a list of all the arbitrary items that have been divided up along culture-war battle lines. Cats-liberal. Dogs-conservative, like that.

John Cena - C.M. Punk




We do not really have a parking problem here, what we lack is enough people to pay for mass transit.

May we tap your wallet to save the environment?

Call it 'Patriotism!'

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Oh wait, will there be rural bus service for those of us who live in the boonies?

Will the driver help me unload my groceries?

How often will the bus run? Will I be home before dark?

I'm asking rosco for the funding even as we speak!

 

[rosco rathbone]

Bikes and light rail free up more gasoline for you rural hayseeds to consume in your rustic vehicles. It's all good.

 

[kbate]

If you don't have a stance on the article why would we discuss it?

You never talk about a television show without taking a stance? The weather? A cloud?

kbate: "That cloud looks like a horse!"

mercury: There is no peer reviewed evidence supporting that!

 

[kbate]

Bikes and light rail free up more gasoline for you rural hayseeds to consume in your rustic vehicles. It's all good.

Plus, it's easier to get rid "we have equal right to the road liberals" when they are on bikes and I'm in my Ram2500 pulling a 6 horse 5th wheel.

All Good indeed.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

You never talk about a television show without taking a stance? The weather? A cloud?

kbate: "That cloud looks like a horse!"

mercury: There is no peer reviewed evidence supporting that!

okay, that made my morning, now I must go release a live-trapped coon.

I wish I had a Beagle pack!

(merc, that is not a racist joke)

rosco, you are a real f-f-ph-ph-philanthrow, filanthrow, throwpuss... Democrat!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Plus, it's easier to get rid "we have equal right to the road liberals" when they are on bikes and I'm in my Ram2500 pulling a 6 horse 5th wheel.

All Good indeed.

Install a big iron lib-catcher on the front!

 

[scrymettet]

You never talk about a television show without taking a stance? The weather? A cloud?

kbate: "That cloud looks like a horse!"

mercury: There is no peer reviewed evidence supporting that!

Nice to see that you haven't change
always the same sweet and nice Kbabe I always liked


ps: don't ever change

 

[Ishmael]

I see that you don't want to discuss it, one again, I am the star of your thought...


Rent-free.

*chuckle* The truth well said.

Ishmael

 

[mercury14]

You never talk about a television show without taking a stance? The weather? A cloud?

kbate: "That cloud looks like a horse!"

mercury: There is no peer reviewed evidence supporting that!

You think AJ doesn't have a stance here?

 

[rosco rathbone]

Plus, it's easier to get rid "we have equal right to the road liberals" when they are on bikes and I'm in my Ram2500 pulling a 6 horse 5th wheel.

All Good indeed.

I can see it now. Retired Montgomery County schoolteachers with grey beards and absurd tight fitting tour de france bike outfits, shaking their fists.

 

[Sean]

I know that whenever I go into London I take the train or the tube because parking is a pain in the arse and costs an arm and a leg. Of course, London has an good public transport system.

 

[kbate]

okay, that made my morning, now I must go release a live-trapped coon.

I wish I had a Beagle pack!

(merc, that is not a racist joke)

rosco, you are a real f-f-ph-ph-philanthrow, filanthrow, throwpuss... Democrat!

Release a coon? I was taught to take them no less than 20 miles from capture unless I wanted them back.

 

[Bidin~Time]

You think AJ doesn't have a stance here?

Oh, I'm sure he does.

Just as I'm sure you do.

Yet, you won't show your hand for fear of finding yourself on the same side as the Cap'n.

And we just couldn't have that, now could we, Merc?

<shudders at the thought>