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Community Corner

For a Few Hours Friday, Several Parking Spots Will Be Mini-Parks

(Park)ing Day comes to Locust Street; the Greenbelt Alliance, Save Mount Diablo and Generation Green team up to transform parking spots in Walnut Creek.

If you're motoring along Locust Street in Walnut Creek mid-day Friday, don’t be surprised if the parking spot you are coveting looks more like a public park in miniature.

To celebrate Park(ing) Day, the Greenbelt Alliance is teaming up with Bay Area organizations to transform several parking spaces into areas that emphasize natural resources and open spaces.

This is the first time that a Park(ing) Day event will take place in Walnut Creek. It will also be the first time the Greenbelt Alliance will mark the event in four Bay Area locations at once, including Oakland, Santa Rosa and San Jose.

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“Walnut Creek is a great place and it is a city that has done a lot of really great investment in getting access to parks and building livable streets," said Sara Barz, a communications associate for the Greenbelt Alliance. "However, there is always room for improvement and parking is an issue … We don’t have to make our streets automatically designed for cars. We can make them devoted to more people-friendly uses like walking, bicycling and having more places for people to sit.”

The Greenbelt Alliance will transform a parking space at 1601 Locust St., between Civic Drive and Bonanza Street. Barz said the alliance’s display will focus on urban limit lines and the steps that Contra Costa County can take to protect its open space and create livable cities.

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The Greenbelt Alliance coordinated with the city of Walnut Creek on the logistics of the event.

Save Mount Diablo will have an exhibit on open space preservation at 1403 Locust St.

Generation Green will work with Heather Farm to concentrate on urban farming and local agriculture. Their parking space will be located at 1349 Locust St.

The organizations will be in Walnut Creek from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Park(ing) Day began on Nov. 15, 2005 when Rebar, an art and design studio located in San Francisco, created a temporary “park” in a parking space in San Francisco. Individuals from Rebar laid down sod, added a park bench and a tree to the area. After two hours, the items were removed and the space returned to a parking spot.

The event has spread to different cities in the United States and also around the world.

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