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I'd never heard that there was an official day for it. PARK(ing) spots are little miniature parks set up in parking spaces, and the BNIM folks set one up in front of Souperman on Friday. I heard about it from Eric and decided to check it out myself. I got there while they were still setting up.




The spot was barricaded by plants and rope. Park benches and games were set up for participants.




They had organic, veggies and snacks grown in urban community and container gardens, and a demo unit of an electric windmill.


A windmill of this size wouldn't do anything at all for home energy generation, though -- it was meant to be mounted on a boat. This company makes much larger models for home use. The representative on site noted that wind power is barely viable unless you're in a windy rural area.


PARK(ing) Day materials. The small flyers included recipes for snacks made using mostly veggies that one could grow in Kansas City's climate. I thought it was a nice touch.


Eric pulled up just as I was leaving.


Another subtle change I noticed lately is that all the crosswalks downtown are "WALK" by default when parallel traffic has a green light. I heard about it a while ago, just haven't been paying attention. Basically, the "push for walk" buttons are obsolete when there's traffic. I'd imagine that you'd still need to press it to let the system know you want to cross a busy street with no traffic in queue, though. Many intersections downtown are using motion-sensing cameras to trigger lights, as opposed to purely timer-based or underground hall-effect loop sensors. These won't likely sense pedestrians waiting to cross.

Random Tunage:
Tchaikovsky - Pas De Deux
Sarah Brightman - La Califfa

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