Later this month, parking spaces across the country will be transformed into park spaces and public performance exhibits, returning valuable urban real estate to the public realm. The Trust for Public Land is hosting the national Park(ing) Day on Sept. 21. According to their website "National Park(ing) Day is a series of public art projects nationwide to celebrate parks and promote the need for more parks in America's cities." I like to think it's also a great way to promote awareness about transportation and how much we waste in the name of the automobile. Street parking is heavily subsidized by the city, so it's very cheap to "rent" a space yourself to create a temporary park for your own street. Just be sure to pay the meter and follow the time limits! Click the link above to let the TPL know about your parking space project if you are planning one.

The Daily Herald ran an encouraging story this week on the increasing trend of bike commuters in the surburbs:

Ditch the drive to work
By Sara Faiwell
9/2/2007

High gas prices have sucked cash out of our pockets for months.

Nick Lenarz takes a stand every day when he hops on his bike in Rolling Meadows and pedals 15 miles to his job in Northbrook.

On a good day, he sees other cyclists on the road, reminding him he's not alone in his quest to be healthier, support the environment and save a ton of gas money.

Read full story: http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=30332

Don't miss the transit rally at 11:30 a.m. Tue., Aug. 28, in front of the Thomspon Center. If funding and reforms don't come through by Sept. 16, we'll see major service cuts across the region and another funding crisis again next year. The local press has made it clear that we can't afford to shortchange our transit any more. But until now we haven't seen crowds of Chicagoans demanding better transit in the streets. Maybe that's what it will take to get reform.

Rep. Julie Hamos and my Rep. Sara Feigenholtz have sent out emails announcing the event (see below).

Dear Neighbor:

Join me and other members of the Mass Transit Committee, civic, business and labor communities and transit advocates from across the region in support of mass transit on Tuesday, August 28th at 11:30 a.m. at the Thompson Center's outdoor plaza at Clark and Randolph streets in the loop.

Senate Bill 572 (which would create a long term funding source for the CTA) will soon be considered by the Illinois Legislature and we need to make it very clear to the rest of the General Assembly and the Governor that we cannot live with the CTA's proposed service cuts that will go into effect September 16, 2007 if this or similar legislation isn't passed immediately.

Parking policies can have a significant impact on our urban environment, deciding whether your neighborhood looks like Little Paris or Little Schaumburg. The city decides the minimum number of off-street parking spaces required for different kinds of development, from condos to bars, and sets the cost of on-street parking meters. These seemingly innocuous policies also influence developers’ decisions about what to build in your neighborhood, indirectly shaping your blocks.

As concerns about parking shortages have grown, neighborhoods have been complaining that new development is straining the limited parking supply. In response, some neighborhoods are downzoning in an effort to limit the number of new residents (and cars), or requiring that new developments include more than the city minimum requirement of one parking space per unit in exchange for zoning changes.

But we don’t really have parking shortages in the city – the same neighborhoods complaining about parking shortages often have parking garages that sit half-empty. We only have shortages of free parking, which is not something we should be in the business of providing anyway.

Often parking becomes an end in and of itself rather than a means to improve access to homes and businesses. Parking should be part of a larger strategy for access rather than treated as the only means of access.

You've probably noticed that some of our crosswalks around Grant and Millennium parks have gone missing over the past couple years. The crosswalks were closed in the name of improving traffic flow. The idea is that if we can get some of those pesky pedestrians out of the way, cars can move more easily. Of course, if we really wanted to improve traffic flow, we should close down Millennium Park -- with it's over 2 million visitors a year, it's a constant source of traffic congestion.

This is, of course, sarcasm. But it is indeed this strain of logic that justifies destroying public spaces in an attempt to "improve traffic flow." And sadly, in its attempt to improve traffic flow, the city is actually causing even more traffic by trying to pack even more cars into downtown.