Parking meter parks to please populace

The trouble-maker in me enjoyed  the reports of people disabling the parking meters, from stuffing them with pennies, super-gluing coins in the slots, spraypainting the display cases, removing the decals and even bashing them with cinder blocks.  One had to at least appreciate the creativity of the saboteurs. So while listening to Chicago Public Radio this morning, I was struck by this piece:

Tomorrow, there may be a few less parking spaces available for your vehicle. The participants in Parking Day are occupying metered street spots and turning them into mini-parks…more green space.

via Eight Forty-Eight – PARKing Day Takes Back Parking Spaces .

At a time when the citizens of Chicago are feeling disenfranchised by the new Parking Meter deal (Daley sold Chicago’s 36,000+ meters to Morgan Stanley, raising the price to park by as much as 400% ), it’s nice to see people exerting their right to the space in a positive way.  PARKing Day states it’s mission as being :

strictly a non-commercial project, intended to promote creativity, civic engagement, critical thinking, unscripted social interactions, generosity and play

via the official PARK(ing) DAY website

People’s feelings about parking in Chicago are overwhelmingly negative, so it’s promising to see the citizenry taking public space back for the public.  The temporary parks will, at the very least, make for some good conversation.  It’s not as if people are parking in those spaces anyway.

Check out the mini-park tomorrow at 3522 N Southport.