By Twilight Greenaway

More parks, fewer cars. The Zen-like philosophy behind September 18th's Park(ing) Day — the annual event that attracts artists, urban planners and open space advocates interested in setting up ad hoc miniature parks in metered parking spaces on urban streets — appears to have hit a tipping point. What began as a quirky San Francisco-based project by experimental art collective Rebar in 2005 will encompass 50 American cities and several international ones in 2009. Recent years have seen parking lot-sized croquet and lawn bowling games, kiddie pools, solar panels, libraries and temporary urban gardens.

For Matthew Shaffer, from The Trust for Public Land, a co-sponsoring organization, the growing popularity of the event signifies a genuine shift in awareness of the need for more (and better) urban parks. In San Francisco, for instance, the day will mark a collaborative effort to renovate three parks that didn’t receive funding through a recent bond measure. Shaffer says he’s seeing more and more cities seeking out creative ways to balance parks with development and transit. “These changes are perhaps slow to materialize, but Park(ing) Day reminds us that common spaces, public parks and nature in the city are important and valuable.”

Not that awareness of the problems inherent in today’s car culture is all it takes to stop driving. Dave Snyder, the transportation policy director at San Francisco Planning and Urban Research (SPUR) doesn’t see fewer actual parking spaces in the immediate future.

“We’ve become so dependent on cars that many of us view them as extensions of ourselves,” says Snyder, adding that most policy measures to reclaim space from cars can cause many drivers to act as if they’ve literally been pulled from their driver’s seat. But he’s optimistic about the reach of this year’s event. “It will be difficult to reclaim urban space from the oppressive domination by cars, but Park(ing) Day — a whimsical, creative day of instant parks and jubilant people — is a rare chance to succeed at doing that.” Visit parkingday.org.