Mapping parklets in Melbourne

Link to the map here.

Over the past few months, there have been concerted efforts by the State Government and local governments across Victoria to support businesses in COVID-19 lockdown and recovery.

One of the latest measures has been to support and/or install expanded space for outdoor dining and trading.

What is a parklet?

A ‘parklet‘ (also called a ‘popup park’) can have several meanings depending on context. In this situation, it is a small, quick-build structure or series of structures that repurposes space on a street for a non-transport use – in this case, outdoor dining and trading.

They generally reuse former car parking spaces adjacent to the business to provide extra capacity for seats, tables and other things to support outdoor dining and trading. Other uses include as waiting areas for cafes, places for people to sit or bicycle parking corrals.

I need your help!

Now that businesses and councils have had some time to prepare, these parklets are popping up just about everywhere. From St Kilda to Melton and from Werribee to Shepparton.

The purpose of this project is to track them and keep some kind of record of this unprecedented transformation of our streets.

To this end, I have created an online map to crowdsource parklet locations and (optionally) photos. The data being collected are:

• Location
• Street name
• Council (optional)
• Photos/images of the parklet

Link to the map is here: https://melbourneparklets.ushahidi.io/

All you have to do is add a pin to the map! Anyone can contribute (you don’t have to log in or create any kind of account) and I would love to have as many people as possible pitch in.

Unfortunately there isn’t capacity in this system to add data to an existing pin. If you see one that is missing some information or you would like to add more to, please just add another pin next to the existing one.

So if you see a new one come up in your neighbourhood or see one on the map that’s missing, please add it in!