Today is Park(ing) Day, and all across the US city-dwellers are claiming car parking spaces and temporarily converting them to parks for people.

Instead of using all our street space to store cars, why not use some of it to make our cities nicer places to live? On Park(ing) Day, groups find an on-street parking space, pay the meter to claim it legally, and instead of parking a car, they park seats, tables, plants, or whatever.

Groups are sponsoring parklets all over the DC region today. I visited two near my Arlington office alone.

Parklets on Clarendon Boulevard (left) and 14th Street North (right). Images by the author.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

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Tagged: arlington, dc, parking, parking day, parklets, public spaces, virginia

Dan Malouff is a transportation planner for Arlington and an adjunct professor at George Washington University. He has a degree in urban planning from the University of Colorado and lives in Trinidad, DC. He runs BeyondDC and contributes to the Washington Post. Dan blogs to express personal views, and does not take part in GGWash's political endorsement decisions.