To simplify, there are basically two broad kinds of approaches that one can take to this. It all depends on your point of departure, which may in many cases be dictated not by choice but by necessity.

A City-Wide Car Free Day?

The first -- and best known until now -- has been the concept of organizing a car free day at the level of a specific city or place. Now that's a terrific idea and over the last several years quite a body of experience has been accumulated with this approach that you can put to work and which is amply documented in these pages and their extensions. But bear in mind that this is quite a demanding thing to make work and that not all cities in the world are ready to give it a try. Fortunately, there are other ways of going about it as well. Have a look at the City CFD section here for some useful hints and leads if that is your intention.

A Trickle-Up Project?

A second approach is to initiate car free day events at the level of a group, neighborhood or even of a family or individual citizen who feel the need to make a contribution to those they love, to themselves, and to the planet when the 19th of April rolls around. This might also be thought of as a "Why Wait?" approach to organizing car free days, and you will find a number of ideas and support for quite a variety of things you can accomplish in this way in this section of the website.

We might mention that this option becomes very important if you live in a place which, for whatever reasons, is unlikely to try a full-scale area-wide CFD on its own. Since this is still the majority case, so this Do-it-Yourself approach begins to take on a great deal of importance in our planet-wide celebration on April 19th.

One or the Other?

This is where things get interesting. Because the heart of this strategy is to find creative ways to cross-stimulate and combine both approaches in the same place. So, in City A it may be that the lead is initially taken by a particularly prescient mayor or city counsel. However, if they are going to succeed fully, they are going to have to draw in the community at large and get them as active participants.

And over in City B, it may be that the initial leads are taken by one or more local groups (for example it might be a bike club, pedestrian association, or some other local group with a green agenda). But if the efforts are well organized they are going to get high public visibility, at which local government may begin to be interested in a more active approach.

Our fondest hope is that we may see these two approaches begin to come together in many places, on the one hand as the mayor and other local leaders begin to get the message that they have an informed active constituency in their city that they can work with -- and then all those groups and people who get ready to work with others to attain their overall community objectives.