Where you won’t find parking on PARKing Day

With parking spaces so difficult to come by, it is once again maddening that the City of Seattle is participating in an event called PARKing Day, where they transform on-street parking spaces into small parklets that no one will use, but make for cute Instagram photos city employees can spend their days posting.

This Friday, Sept. 18, the city will allow the pop-up parks between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. And the city has been kind enough to give us a map of where it’ll be even more difficult to find parking as you’re trying to get to a meeting, a lunch date, or another appointment.

Just to make it even more apparent that the Seattle Department of Transportation has a virulent anti-car culture, they’re taking the lead in live tweeting the event. Why does SDOT have any involvement in promoting this? This actively makes transportation more difficult. Oh – that’s why.

SDOT has an agenda that makes life for drivers much more difficult (they assume they’ll change the “evil” car culture by trying to force drivers out of cars and onto public transportation or bicycles; that’s especially easy for those of you who commute into Seattle from Pierce County).

So what kind of pop-up parks will you find?

In Ballard, at 6405 32nd Ave NW, they describe the park simply as, “Creating with clay and other art materials.” Creating what? And what other art materials? Paint? Well, what kind? I must know this to prepare!

Also in Ballard, on 4600 Shilshole Ave NW, they’re claiming there will be a “projected bike lane demonstration project.” Yes, they’ll be demonstrating a bike lane in the space of a parking spot – which, actually, is quite funny given SDOT is stealing parking spots to give to 3.4 percent of the commuting population to use (when it’s not raining).

In downtown, at 1011 Western Ave, there will be a small golfing course (I imagine it’s quite small given… it’s a parking spot) and in Pioneer Square, on 208 1st Ave. S., there will be a park that is a “cell phone free zone” (let’s see if SDOT live tweets from their phones at that location).

In all seriousness, is this a cute little event? Sure &#8212 but one that would be better served on a weekend when people can actually enjoy and explore the spaces. Do it on a weekend when people aren’t rushing to get to work on time, when people have the time to enjoy what you’re trying to get them to enjoy.

I’m sure it’s a fun event for city employees who apparently have a bunch of free time on their hands to enjoy this, and certainly this appeals to the professional activists who show up to Council meetings in the middle of the day, but for the rest of us with jobs, this seems like a wasted opportunity. And not to mention, it’s another long list of moves that the city takes to really tell the drivers they don’t care about you.

To be fair to the city, their hearts are in this: they don’t care about drivers.