WHAT IS A POP-UP PARKLET?

Pop-up refers to spontaneous or temporary nature of the parklet. A Parklet is a mini-park created along
a street, usually within the parking zone, to enhance the pedestrian experience along the sidewalk.
While a parklet is mostly for peoples enjoyment by creating a greener streetscape, it can represent a
thoughtful reallocation of public space and a deliberate action to shift away from our auto-dominated
streets. Many streets are designed for cars at the expense of pedestrian safety, comfort and enjoyment.
Today, many communities are re-thinking their streets and making them friendly to all modes of travel,
especially pedestrians and bicycles. These complete streets are recognition that we can change the way
a street looks, functions, and feels. A complete street also recognizes that children, seniors and the
disabled can be safely accommodated in the street environment, while creating a healthy and walkable
environment for everyone.

WHY BUILD A PARKLET?

Over the last century, without realizing it, we have dedicated a tremendous amount of our town and its
land area to the automobile. If we add up all the paved streets, parking lots and parking spaces, it totals
almost 40% of our land area! Automobiles have a huge appetite for land. In addition to the space one
parked car needs for a drive way and garage, it has been estimated that there are four parking spaces for
every car in the US. That means three out of every four spaces are unused at any given time!
In our case, we have over 8,000 cars registered in Haddonfield Borough. That means we have about
32,000 parking spaces (or 118 acres), both public and private. All this pavement consumes land that could
be used for other purposes like schools, housing, gardens, parks and open space. In addition to the direct
pollutants from cars, this expanse of hard pavement also causes many other environmental problems
which have tremendous impacts and costs. Flooding, erosion, sedimentation of streams, water pollution
and now climate impacting heat islands are some of the results of our penchant for pavement.
The good news is that we can reverse the growth of auto use and the adverse effects of pavement by
changing how we travel and how we design and use our streets and parking areas. Parklets can also
include rain gardens to reduce stormwater runoff. Building parklets is one small way to begin to change
how we think and demonstrate new ways to manage our land and improve environmental quality.

If you think a parklet is a better use of land than a parking space, tell us why
by tweeting using the hashtag #haddonfieldparklet and lets get the
conversation going! You can also visit the Sustainable Haddonfield website and
leave your comments there. Thanks!