VANCOUVER -- A 30-foot-long lunch table that pops up in the middle of a street just long enough for office workers to eat lunch is the newest idea for creating impromptu meeting places in Vancouver.

Starting in July and running once a week on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, volunteers will close a downtown city street, erect the table and put out chairs. For two hours, anyone can come down and brown-bag it at the Lunch Meet event. The city is also looking at encouraging street food vendors to set up near by.

And then, just as fast as it is put up, the whole thing will be taken down and the road opened to vehicle traffic again.

The idea is the newest project of Viva Vancouver, a $390,000 city-sponsored program that is behind a number of other summertime street closures and public-space activations.

"It is about creating spaces and building capacity on our streets for public engagement," said Jerry Dobrovolny, the city's director of transportation.

Dobrovolny said the city hasn't yet determined which street Lunch Meet will use, but it will likely be in the Gastown or Hastings Crossing area near Victory Square.

Coun. Andrea Reimer — who said she thinks the idea of a short-term picnic table in the middle of a downtown road is an ingenious use of public space — said she's been told staff are looking at either Abbott, Carrall or Cambie streets.

"I think it is a great idea. I thought it was a great idea before I knew they were thinking of Gastown," she said.

"I worked in Gastown for 20 years and you meet all these interesting people and you make eye contact with them, but being able to sit down next to them and eat lunch you brought from home or bought from a local business is fantastic."

The project is being done in partnership with the Vancouver Public Spaces Network and will only run for the month of July. But other street activations, including a complete closure of Robson Street between Hornby and Howe will run the entire summer.

On Tuesday city council was notified Viva Vancouver will set up 10 projects, some of which will be roving events while others will be semi-permanent installations on side streets.

Starting June 23 and running until Labour Day, the Granville Mall will be closed to vehicles every Saturday and Sunday. The Robson Street closure covers the same period, and starts with the Vancouver International Jazz Festival in its new downtown home.

Additionally, the city plans to create a few more "parklets" similar to its Parallel Park installation on West 14th Avenue at Main Street. That wood-and-concrete plaza takes up two metered parking spaces but has received so much positive feedback that other business areas are clamouring for their own little on-street parks, Dobrovolny said.

This is the second year of the Viva Vancouver program, which last year saw the creation of Picnurbia, with its fake beaches on Robson Street, and the Saturday closure of Commercial Drive and Granville Mall to vehicles in order to promote foot traffic.