San Francisco's City Planning Department’s Pavement to Parks program

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A parklet is defined as a small urban park, often created by replacing several under-utilized parallel parking spots with a patio, planters, trees, benches, café tables with chairs, fountain(s), artwork, sculptures and/or bicycle parking.

Parklets are designed to provide a public place for citizens to relax and enjoy the atmosphere of the city around them, in places where either current urban parks are lacking or if the existing sidewalk width is not large enough to accommodate vibrant street life activities. Parklets can be designed to be either permanent fixtures, or can be designed to be temporary/seasonal.

Would be an interesting idea to explore in areas of downtown to increase the amount of public space and to tie into the increase in bicycle infrastructure. San Francisco is a leader in this type of initiative with their Pavement to Parks program.