A New Public (car) Park On Hardinge Street!!

Something’s grown over night….

A New Public (car) Park On Hardinge Street!!

Auckland is home to lots of cars, with over 430,000 cars counted at the last census1 and 15,000 cars joining Auckland’s roads every year2. Along with all our cars come hundreds of car parks.

Park(ing) Day3 is a world-wide event to explore how we use our city and whether we want quite so much of it to be covered in grey asphalt to park cars.

Today car parks on Hardinge Street, Auckland CBD (outside Café Melba), have been transformed into a temporary pocket park. Taking two car parks and using them to host a picnic creates an opportunity for everyone to enjoy a new public space and have fun using a piece of our city in an unusual way.

All Park(ing) Day events around the world pay for the use of their car parks but choose to locate a park, rather than a car, in the car park for the day. The mission of Park(ing) Day is to call attention to the need for more urban open space, to generate critical debate around how public space is created and allocated, and to improve the quality of urban human habitat - at least until the meter runs out!

Everyone is welcome to visit the Hardinge Street (car) Park Picnic. Joins us to enjoy a coffee on the lawn, lean back and relax on a sun lounger or enjoy a game of frisbee.

The Hardinge Street Park(ing) Day event will run until 2.00pm today, Thursday 20 September 2012.

Hardinge Street Park(ing) Day proudly brought to you by The Urban Picnic Collective

1 Source: http://profile.idnz.co.nz/default.aspx?id=418&pg=8460&gid=10 19/09/13
2 Source: http://theplan.theaucklandplan.govt.nz/aucklands-transport/ 19/09/13
3 Information about the origins of Park(ing) day can be found at http://parkingday.org

ENDS

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