Park(ing) Day – SvN’s This Street is Yours!

Park(ing) Day is a global event that takes place annually on the third weekend of September. Around the world, people temporarily repurpose parking spaces to create pop-up parks and other public spaces for art, play, and activism. The event draws attention to the need for improving access and quantity of public open spaces in densely populated urban areas as well as the need for these spaces to provide social and environmental engagement. The goal of Park(ing) Day is to celebrate the use of urban public space for people and challenge the dominance of the automobile in cities.

Join SvN on Saturday, September 20 from 9am to 12pm for our Park(ing) Day activations and installations on Front Street East on the south side of Berczy Park. 
 

This year SvN is supporting the Old Town Toronto BIA in transforming our neighbourhood’s streets into places that make our community a better place to live, work, and visit. Our community and the city around it are rapidly changing. Over the next five years, new public transit initiatives, fast-paced land redevelopment, municipal road reconstruction projects, and updated city standards will impact over 30% of our street network. We want to leverage this change to create complete, safe, people-focused streets that are designed to meet our needs: built right, easily maintained, and welcoming to all.

This year’s focus is on how streets define our neighbourhood. By making better use of existing road space, funding, and planned upgrades—with little or no impact to traffic or City budgets—we can shape streets that are social, communal, green, playful, diverse, and resilient.

The key is collaboration. By developing a clear process and working closely with local experts and City divisions, we can transform our streets into lasting community assets. Speak to us on Park(ing) Day to hear more about how we can work together to shape a stronger, more connected Old Town.

This Street is Yours!

Streets have the power to define the way we live together. Streets have the power to define the way we live together. As our largest public space by area, they can be dynamic places where community life unfolds, relationships are built, and local culture is expressed.

To achieve these goals, we need to move beyond the one-dimensional “movement only” thinking that currently dominates the design of our streets, towards a multi-dimensional and place-based set of strategies. To illustrate this potential, SvN has invited Toronto citizens and place-makers to explore and imagine imagine the many opportunities for our city’s streets.

Learn more about the strategies for making the most if of our collective public space.

Park(ing) Day Toronto

For the past two years we have partnered with Dubbeldam Architecture + Design, Arup Canada and MASSIVart, with Dialog and Fast+Epp joining this year, creating the Park(ing)Day Grants Program to encourage more activations throughout the city. You can check out the Toronto Map to plan your visit to the activations in the Greater Toronto Area or the Global Map for activations around the world.