Parking Lots as Public Spaces

[Charles Hunter]

An interesting article from the New York Times, saying that we should look at parking lots as public spaces, not just vaster wastelands.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/arts/design/taking-parking-lots-seriously-as-public-spaces.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&smid=fb-share

...

As the critic Lewis Mumford wrote half a century ago, “The right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar in an age when everyone possesses such a vehicle is the right to destroy the city.” Yet we continue to produce parking lots, in cities as well as in suburbs, in the same way we consume all those billions of plastic bottles of water and disposable diapers.

What to do?

For starters we ought to take these lots more seriously, architecturally. Many architects and urban planners don’t. Beyond greener designs and the occasional celebrity-architect garage, we need to think more about these lots as public spaces, as part of the infrastructure of our streets and sidewalks, places for various activities that may change and evolve, because not all good architecture is permanent. Hundreds of lots already are taken over by farmers’ markets, street-hockey games, teenage partiers and church services. We need to recognize and encourage diversity. This is the idea behind Parking Day, a global event, around since 2005, that invites anybody and everybody to transform metered lots. Each year participants have adapted hundreds of them in dozens of countries, setting up temporary health clinics and bike-repair shops, having seminars and weddings.

[Jaxson]

Surface parking has a lot of potential during off-peak hours during which people are not using them.  With a little bit of beautification and cleaning, we could transform downtown parking lots into vibrant settings for more social interaction.  These after hours events, like the above mentioned article suggests, could include block parties, art shows and other activities that make the most of otherwise dead space.

[thelakelander]

I've always thought that the parking lots surrounding Everbank Field could double as green "flex" space.  Also, many cities are using private surface lots as food truck courts.


http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/united-states/food-truck-court-opens-in-queens-60174.html

[dougskiles]

Put all parking lot owners on notice.  If you don't find a way to utilize your lot, we are taking it back.  There are countless vacant shopping centers in town.  We could reduce the pollution load to the river by ripping up the asphalt and creating wetlands.  Think Save Our Springfield, but in reverse.  Just say no to mothballing of old parking lots!  Just as the city saw the old buildings as dangerous, we should see the parking lots as dangerous to our river.

If and when they ever find tenants willing to do business in those wretched places again, they can build new lots that meet current standards for pollution control.

[Ralph W]

Is this the ordinary Joe taking over parking lots for various reasons or activities or a governmental agency jumping in and utilizing "metered" public lots or privately owned "by the hour, day or week" lots on the weekend?

The article says anybody and everybody but when you can't even have a pickup game of baseball on a public baseball field on the off days - how does that work?

[north miami]

Thank you Charles Hunter......I feel the wheels a' turning,grinding,making diamonds.....out of......parking lot.
( Medians a related subject matter)

Trivia question:
......Planners & Consultants to attention,to the front of the public space...errr,Parking Lot.

has 'parking' area,space,ever been employed as "Credit"?   ( NE Fla examples)

[Dashing Dan]

This could be us!

The Pensacola Parking Syndrome is a term of the trade used to describe a city that tears down its old buildings to create parking spaces to entice more people downtown, until people no longer want to go there because it has become an empty lot.

[Bativac]

This isn't directly related to this topic but I've been reading an interesting article on parking.

http://www.lamag.com/features/Story.aspx?ID=1568281

It's about LA but I think a lot of it applies to Jacksonville, too.

[peestandingup]

Put all parking lot owners on notice.  If you don't find a way to utilize your lot, we are taking it back. 

This. What cities & private landowners have to understand is that the same rules simply can't apply if your space is located in downtown/urban areas. Because if you have enough of these guys who just sit on their properties or do whatever they want with them (like let them stagnate, charge insane rents for what's basically a sh*thole, etc), that can REALLY stifle revitalization efforts. Just ask Main Street Springfield.

I'm just saying. It's not like these spaces are out in the middle of nowhere suburbia. Standards should be set way higher. But then again, I don't think the city always does the right thing either. Boy, that's an understatement. So who really knows the answer.

[dougskiles]

So who really knows the answer.

They are easy to find, right here on this message board.  For free.

[Ralph W]

Nope. Never work. The saying, "You get what you pay for", comes to mind. Free is bad. Pay that consultant and everything is rosy. Wrong, but rosy.

[johnny_simpatico]

The NYT article wasn't so much about making use of unused parking lots as it was about challenges to prevailing attitudes toward required parking availability.  I read this and immediately thought about the ongoing Kickbacks debate.  Jacksonville already has too much parking.  The situation can be reversed with new development that excludes parking or includes minimal parking.  Downtown, with its endless parade of parking structures and barren parking lots, is a lost cause...and they are building a new garage for the Landing!