11 min read

Falls Church City’s PARK(ing) Day Showcases Environmentalism, Livability

Falls Church City’s PARK(ing) Day Showcases Environmentalism, Livability
Meridian High School senior Gavin Hale (right), founder of the school's new Renewable Energy Club, plays chess with unidentified City official, (left) in the City's pop-up "parklet" on PARK(ing) Day, Sept. 20. Photo by Chris Jones.

In 1970, Canadian singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell energized the Modern Environmental Movement with plaintive lyrics on flip sides of the same vinyl 45. 

On the A-side, she intoned, “And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden,” in the chorus of “Woodstock.” And, in "Big Yellow Taxi," on the B-side, she mourned, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."

In the more than half-century since, environmental activists around the world have continued calling for preserving green spaces and reducing the negative impacts of cars.

“What if we turned some of these parking spaces into parks?,” many city-dwellers and suburbanites asked. Soon green design activists took up the call and began envisioning the transformation of urban parking spaces – hitherto devoted to parking private cars – into mini parks dedicated to public enjoyment and expression.

And thus PARK(ing) Day was born. 

It began as “a global, public, participatory art project launched by Rebar in 2005,” and was conceptualized as “ a day where people across the world temporarily repurpose street parking spaces and convert them to tiny parks and places for art, play, and activism.”

In San Fransisco, the first PARK(ing) Day Installation: "In 2005 the Rebar design team equipped with 200 square-feet of lawn, a 15–foot–tall tree, a rented park bench and the desire to exploit the metered parking space as a site for art, activism and cultural expression, created the first Park(ing) Day." Courtesy Myparkingday.org.

Today, "Park(ing) Day is a unique and exciting opportunity to engage in the ongoing dialogue around how our cities are designed and built," says MyParkingDay.org. "It began as a guerilla art project and act of design activism in a single parking space, and has grown into a global movement, inspiring the creation of ‘parklets’ and Covid-era ‘streateries’ in cities across the United States and beyond."

And the City of Falls Church – recently named by U.S. News & World Report as the “healthiest community in the U.S.” – has been holding its own annual PARK(ing) Day for years.

“The City of Falls Church proudly presents its annual PARK(ing) Day on Friday, September 20, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m….,” the City announced. “PARK(ing) Day is a global annual event where parking spots typically used by cars are transformed into temporary pop-up parks to rethink the use of urban spaces. This event will enrich the community by creating an inviting streetscape and promoting activities that allow for social exchange, fun, creativity, and a rethinking of the public-right-of-way.”

Courtesy City of Falls Church.

Organized by City planners, this year’s PARK(ing) Day event was held at 479 S. Maple Ave., – in the three spaces normally dedicated to 30-minute car-parking – between 455 Tinner Hill Apartments and Creative Cauldron. 

Arriving at 9:00 a.m., I saw young City officials in casual dress quickly finishing up their conversion of the alloted parking spaces into an astro-turfed green City “parklet” with safety barriers, an informational tent for distributing City handouts, seating for visitors, flower planters, sidewalk chalk, giant Jenga blocks and other children’s games, a gaming table, and several elevated educational displays and posters. 

As the City officials were finishing their set-up, I struck up a conversation first with Meridian High School Senior Gavin Hale, founder of the school’s new Renewable Energy Club, as he stood near an informational poster for the club he designed. Hale was the only City student with club information represented in the parklet. 

How Hale came to be invited to the event is an interesting tale. To launch his new club at Meridian, he needed to find an adult mentor. So, he turned to Jon Ward on the Steering Committee of the Falls Church Climate Action Committee (FCCAN). Soon, Hale not only had an adult sponsor, but a wide network of like-minded thinkers at the ready.

Gavin Hale, Meridian H.S. senior, next to his Renewable Energy Club display. Photo by Chris Jones.

To promote Electric Vehicle (EV) use as a way of mitigating climate change, Hale had the idea of inviting a local Tesla distributor to demonstrate their latest EVs at Meridian. Ward and Hale put the message out about the school Tesla demo and soon City Environmental Planner Kurt Lawrence – organizer for the City’s PARK(ing) Day event – got wind. Lawrence attended the Tesla event, met Hale, and invited him to do a display for the City’s parklet.

Setting up the giant Jenga blocks for the kids. City Environmental Planner Kirk Lawrence (top) and Meridian H.S. Student Gavin Hale (right).

Standing next to his display touting “The Power of Pedals” and “The environmental impact of cars,” I asked Hale what inspired him to launch the Renewable Energy Club. “The first thing that got me really into this was I went to Environmental Engineering class at Clemson over the summer,” Hale said. “It really inspired me to just really dive into renewable energy solutions. And I started off with trying to find more efficient batteries and that led me to want to promote EVs. So, I asked Tesla, ‘Oh, would you like to do a test drive at Meridian, and I can get like 30 people and you can bring some cars?’”

Does Hale want to be an environmental engineer? “Right now, I’m thinking about geoscience because that will lead me into the energy sector. And usually most people take Oil, but I’m going to go more into batteries and focus on trying to find environmentally friendly batteries, like switching from Lithium-Ion to Sodium-Ion because Lithium-Ion has a lot of elements that are non-replenishable, like Lithium, and all those not-so-great materials.” But Sodium is basically "like just salt."

Hale is trying to light a fire under his generation and among his peers at Meridian about what will happen if a transition is not made from fossil fuels. “I think for future generations, spreading awareness about these batteries and these EVs can really make an impact,” he said. “We have a limited amount of fossil fuels and that amount is slowly depleting, because we’re using it all,” he said. “And it’s all going straight into the air. And as we’re cutting down more trees which are carbon storages.... and using fossil fuels for cars, it’s really adding up [to exacerbate] climate change [by adding more greenhouse gases to Earth's atmosphere] – if you believe in that. For Hale, there's "good evidence" for climate change, but sadly, "most people know about it, but don’t really care or take any initiative to, say, get the lights in their house energy-star certified, or just try to save energy.”

So, is Hale looking to buy a Tesla? “Well, In the future, I’m definitely going to buy an EV,” he said. “I’m also going to buy a green energy source for where I get my power from. And I think with solar panels, by the time I’m old enough to have my house have solar panels, I think they’ll be a lot more affordable because they’ll have been around a lot longer.”

Nearby in the parklet, I then met City Transportation Planner, Jenna Brummond, who just received her Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from Virginia Tech in May, 2023. 

"How is the City’s Transportation Department involved with this?," I asked. PARK(ing) Day “focuses on how we can re-imagine parking spaces and space typically taken up by asphalt for cars and seeing how we can re-purpose that. In this case, having a parklet out here kind of shows how we can invite people back into those urban spaces,” Brummond said. 

With the City’s Small Area Plan passing at the East End, Brummond said, “there’s been a big initiative to increase park spaces” near Eden Center where PARK(ing) Day was held last year. 

City Transportation Planner Jenna Brummond. Photo by Chris Jones.

Though Brummond acknowledged that it’s always controversial to “take away parking spaces,” she reassured that greening City spaces is part of the Transportation Department’s mission as well. “We always want to get community engagement and input on the spots,” she said. “And, it doesn’t take that much space to add a little greenery or extend curbs a little bit to add a few more trees and create a tree-scape to make the street more inviting.” 

Brummond said that she hopes the City will expand its programs to create pop-up parklets and increase the number of the City’s green spaces. City authorities might work with “other municipalities” such as Arlington and the District who've opened up their PARK(ing) Day festivities to “other organizations to get spots," she said. "I think that discourse would be really cool for future years to kind of expand it and see how we can – not just as a city – have spots and to advocate for City programs and plans to include other organizations.”

Finally, once the parklet was fully operational, I had the chance to chat with young City Environmental Planner Kurt Lawrence, the event organizer who had invited Meridian student Hale to attend. Lawrence described the day as “a team event” and duly credited the departments of Public Works, Rec. and Parks, Urban Forestry, and others for their help putting everything together. 

Lawrence only recently graduated from the Univ. of Maryland with a degree in Environmental Science and Technology, minoring in Sustainability. At UMD, he worked in the Office of Sustainability. For the City, he spends a lot of time putting on events in addition to PARK(ing) Day. “Something I really love about this position with the City is being able to do a really wide mix of activities related to the environment because I think they’re all super important,” he said. “Two weeks ago we hosted an event [with FCCAN] at the Cherry Hill Farmhouse displaying some energy geo-efficiency upgrades we’ve made, kind of simple things you could do in your own home, like switching to LED lights, getting a programmable thermostat, weather-stripping your doors, that sort of thing.” 

Organizer for PARK(ing) Day, Falls Church City Environmental Planner Kurt Lawrence. Photo by Chris Jones.

The City Council had requested that a “community energy action” program be developed to promote sustainable strategies for residents to “reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.” So, Lawrence helped spearhead the creation of the City’s “One Stop Shop” website, teaching “all about the benefits of going green, including tax benefits!” 

“So this is an online resource telling people about transportation and electric vehicles, rooftop solar and efficient electrical appliances, and it gives you information and links out to other federal resources on things like tax credits and how to actually implement some of these things in your life and how a lot of these are sort of win-win,” Lawrence said, showing me the flyer for the One Stop Shop.

But PARK(ing) Day is a special event for Lawrence. “It’s kind of an international thing we think is a great idea,” he emphasized. “The spaces we use for cars can be really meaningful if we repurpose them in some way.... We have a lot of space in the City and it can be a really great space for people, pedestrians, bikes, and of having dense green spaces for people to go and use.”

I asked Lawrence why they chose to set up kids games in the parklet. “So, we’re trying to get a mix of audiences that have a stake in the park, right? So we’ve got some plants to make it beautiful for everybody,” he said. “And we’ve got some information for some of our adult passersby, then we’ve got games set up over here for kids, because it’s a park and we want kids to play and have fun. So, we’re trying to have something for everyone. We have a pretty big space here.” 

Free handouts from the City. Photo by Chris Jones.

In addition to an historical poster for the Tinner Hill Historic District, a banner for the new Visit Falls Church website, and Meridian High’s Renewable Energy Club poster, Lawrence highlighted the handouts in the City’s informational tent. “We do have a lot of handouts today…. We have a variety for people to take and enjoy relating to the environment, transportation, bikes, and some of our newer initiatives as a city, including the accessory dwelling initiatives you see on that paper there,” he said, pointing. “We recently came out with the Visit Falls Church website and there’s a sticker there for people to take and then a couple of booklets of information regarding trees… That’s a handout, “Common Native Trees of Virginia,” and we’ve got some more stuff about caring for your trees. Our Urban Forestry people put that out.”

Promoting the City's new Visit Falls Church website. Photo by Chris Jones.

And why are trees so important for the City? “Trees are very important for a variety of reasons,” Lawrence said. “They’re kind of very integral to the character of the City. We like being a green, beautiful place with all these old mature trees. They’re great for the environment. They keep our air clean. They take in a lot of our water. There’s a sense of biophilia for people. They like to walk down the street and see trees and the green that makes people feel calm. It cools the temperature. It’s great for the urban heat island effect. You know if you get a lot of pavement and big buildings and that kind of thing it can trap a lot of heat. But, when you have a lot of trees in there moving air around and providing shade, that’s a great way to cool down the temperature of the city.”

Sidewalk chalk provided for the kids. Photo by Chris Jones.

Lawrence was most pleased a few weeks ago when he saw the news that the City of Falls Church was named the “healthiest community in the U.S.” by U.S. News & World Report. “I saw that a lot of it was [based on] people’s ability to walk around in a dense area or to get around by bike or by foot. So I think PARK(ing) Day plays into that really well by showing people you might not need a car for everyday things,” he said. “You can walk around to little parks around town. We’re in a great area with a lot of restaurants, sites to see. We’ve got Cavalier Trail Park over there as well [Points] if people want to dive deeper into nature. So I thought [the U.S. News & World Report ranking] was a really great kind of recognition for us and it kind of supports our goal that we want the people of the City to be healthy.”