Seattle to lose 47 parking spaces on Friday for PARKing Day
Sep 14, 2017, 3:22 PM | Updated: 5:00 pm
Seattle will suddenly lose 47 on-street parking spots on Friday, Sept. 15. It’s the annual PARKing Day when many of those parking spots will go away for day-long community parks.
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The parks are set in on-street parking spaces between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. and are aimed at promoting a walkable, livable city. You can share photos of your own trip through the one-day parks on Twitter, though no one has tweeted on the Seattle PARKing Day account since 2015.
Of course, parking in Seattle is a touchy subject, since there are never enough spaces for drivers. This has prompted criticism around PARKing day in the past. If you are concerned about the sudden loss of highly-sought after spaces in Seattle, don’t worry. This year, it’s Friday-only. Seattle attempted PARKing Day Plus in 2016, extending the event over two days.
According to Norm Mah with the Seattle Department of Transportation, the parks were scaled back to a one-day fest to align with the national event. That’s why PARKing Day is on a Friday — a workday — every other city is doing it then as well.
There are 47 parks slated for this year’s event, as compared to 50 last year.
In the past, Seattleites have gotten creative with its pop-up parks. There have been outdoor living rooms, mini golf, gaming stations, music events, and works of art.
The Seattle Department of Transportation and the Department of Neighborhoods offer $1,000 grants to residents to create their own parks for the day. Seattle is among 160 cities across America to take part in PARKing Day in the past 10 years.
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