How To Use Parking Season To Make Your Community Stronger
We are about to enter my first parking season at Strong Towns.
What is parking season, you ask?
Parking season is the time of the year when parking is in the news. Our friends over at the Parking Reform Network have embraced Park(ing) Day this year — coming up on September 20 — and not long after that, Strong Towns will have Black Friday Parking to expose how cities and towns have focused their policies on building out parking more than building productive places.
One powerful way for cities to increase their resilience and productivity is to abolish parking minimums. For local heroes, embracing this challenge often involves taking small steps before reaching the final goal.
Identifying larger trends and events happening in communities across the country and latching onto those activities is how you can leverage a “season.” As an advocate, you do not have to create all that energy and momentum yourself: The upcoming parking season can help you drive real change to parking policy in your community.
For several years (2016-18), I was the planning director for Lafayette, Louisiana. At that time, the city was busy implementing a recently adopted comprehensive plan and Downtown Action Plan. That plan specifically cited the need for the community to “identify and implement outdoor dining opportunities including … selectively occupying on-street parking spaces for dining.” While the city had hosted Jason Roberts of Better Block fame and unveiled Lafayette’s first temporary parklet in 2014, it lacked the momentum to go beyond that first installation. And it definitely did not have outdoor dining in parking spaces for cars. Lafayette needed a shot in the arm to achieve this goal.
Enter Park(ing) Day. For those not in the know, Park(ing) Day is the third Friday in September and is a “global, public, participatory project where people across the world temporarily repurpose curbside parking spaces and convert them into public parks and social spaces to advocate for safer, greener, and more equitable streets for people.” Through this framework, Lafayette was able to begin communicating its vision for more parklets in a very Strong Towns way — that is, it took the next smallest step toward achieving its goal.
The city worked with a nonprofit organization — ReCover Acadiana (now Civicside) — to host Park(ing) Day in 2017. That first year, it had 16 temporary installations in Downtown Lafayette. They were works of architecture, museum-inspired installations, a temporary fountain and a simple installation that foreshadowed enjoying a dining experience outdoors.
A museum-inspired installation from Park(ing) Day in Lafayette.
A temporary fountain installed during Park(ing) Day in Lafayette.
People enjoyed the experience, and it allowed Downtown business owners and stakeholders to experience the change in a temporary way. They liked it. They started to see the vision of how Lafayette could use its public space differently and how it might bring more energy to the Downtown neighborhood.
Less than a year after that installation (and with some other work and public meetings), the governing body of Lafayette adopted an ordinance to permit parklets and outdoor dining. The first outdoor dining parklet is still there today (the pizza is great too).
As you’re thinking about how to create change in your community, always be on the lookout for a “season” you can grab onto. It may make the change easier than you think.
If you want to add even more momentum to your parking efforts, don't miss this Thursday's Local Motive session. Carlee will be joining Paloma Delgadillo, a city council member in Broomfield, Colorado, to talk about Delgadillo's work changing parking policy. Join us — it’s parking season!
Carlee Alm-LaBar is the Chief of Staff for Strong Towns. Carlee has become a champion for strong communities and civic engagement through her work in Lafayette, Louisiana. She has held senior leadership roles in local government and nonprofit organizations. When she’s not with her husband Will or dog Jozy, she spends her spare time volunteering with a variety of local organizations that build connections between people and empower local residents. Carlee graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern University and holds a master’s degree in Public Administration from Louisiana State University.