PARK(ing) Day will get you thinking about your next parking space in a new way. On Friday, Tucson will join dozens of other communities in a growing effort to get people to consider creative ways that the spaces could be used. • "It can have a meaning, it can be educational, or it can just be silly," said Jody Blaylock, Tucson's PARK(ing) Day coordinator. • The concept started in 2005 when a small group of artists in San Francisco temporarily transformed metered parking spaces into miniparks and other social spaces. The goal was to challenge people to rethink the way streets are used. The effort has since gone global.
Last year 80 groups participated in Tucson, taking over spaces downtown, on North Fourth Avenue and near the University of Arizona,
"I thought it was something refreshing for Tucson," said said MaryLou Ramirez, the parking-services supervisor for ParkWise, the city's parking program.
People are also reading…
ParkWise and the UA's Parking and Transportation Services take reservations for spaces and provide orange cones for a little added safety.
The only major rule for PARK(ing) Day is the space can't be used for commercial purposes. Otherwise, participants are free to let their imaginations take over.
WHAT'S BEEN DONE, WHAT TO LOOK FOR, IDEAS ON GETTING INVOLVED
Have a barbecue
• Fire up the grill and turn your parking space into a full-blown barbecue. Set up folding chairs, a picnic table or fill up a kiddie pool and hang out with friends and family. Or stop and pick up a plate of carne asada fired up at one of the Ward 1-sponsored parking spaces on Pennington Street near Stone Avenue.
Throw a rock concert
• Share your musical talents with the rest of the city. Set up solo or with your band and turn your parking space into a mini Madison Square Garden. Take your gig on the road and go on tour by setting up at different parking spaces throughout the day.
Grow something
• Lizard Rock Design, a landscape architecture firm (where Blaylock works), will be handing out lizard-shaped seed bombs, small clusters of seeds encased in soil and clay that you can take home and drop into your backyard, for a native wildflower explosion in the spring.
Do a little Dance
• Take a cue from New ARTiculations, which performed improv dance pieces throughout the day.
• Bring your boom box and dance like nobody's watching. Invite others for a dancing-in-the-street party or bring back old dance crazes. We all remember The Electric Slide and Macarena, right?
Work it out
• You don't need a huge gym to burn some calories. Students from City High School will demonstrate yoga poses and give self-defense lessons in one of their spaces on East Pennington Street.
Unleash the writer within
• William Carlos Williams didn't need a lot of space to create his masterpieces (The M.D. jotted down poems on prescription pad-sized paper between appointments) — and neither do you. Assemble, write and illustrate a book, or add a verse to a car-length poem at one of City High's spaces.
Get schooled
• Last year, Councilwoman Regina Romero's staff set up a Sonoran Desert park to encourage Tucsonans to landscape with more native species. They also demonstrated how to identify and remove invasive plants like buffelgrass.
If you go
• What: PARK(ing) Day, in which parking spaces are converted to extra "green" space.
• Where: Parking spaces downtown, on North Fourth Avenue and along East University Boulevard.
• When: All day Friday.
• More information: Go to parkingday.org for details and a map of spaces.
Reserve a space
• You still can get a parking space. Call ParkWise, 791-5071, today and Friday.
• Spaces downtown cost $4.50, loading zones are $20, and spaces on East University Boulevard cost $9 for the entire day.