The 2001 Wrinkle

"The processes that occur in our [societies] are not arcane, capable of being understood only by experts. They can be understood by almost anybody. Many ordinary people already understand this; they simply have not considered that by understanding these ordinary arrangements of cause and effect, we can also direct them, if we want to."

         - Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961

  • 2001 Cities?
  • Do-it-yourself Car Free Days
  • The Pioneer Cities and The Challenge

    • Will we have 2001 cities participating on 19 April?

    Unlikely, barring miracles. But maybe that is not the point. Let's have a look.

    OK, you know pretty much what car-free days are -- and you surely know too that up to now most of the thought and action on our topic has been aimed at organizing CFD projects in towns and cities. Fair enough! There is a lot that is very good and logical in this way of looking at it. After all, at the end of the day the objective, the hope, is to use these Days as stepping stones to finding ways to achieve major reductions in the number of solo-driver cars in cities, without sacrificing convenience or quality of life for the people that live, work and study there.

    The truth is, however, that despite the considerable progress of the last year or so, there are still relatively few cities in the world that are ready or willing to take the time and trouble (and risk!) to organize a full-size, city-wide, all bells and whistles CFD. . . yet! (Have a look at our essay-for-comment, soberly entitled The Car-Free Day Haters, for some of the grim realities one in up against in trying to gain support for a car free day when you step into a real city.) The point is that getting a car free day right at the level of a whole city is no easy job -- so if that's you target, you had better be prepared to work very hard and very smart if you are going to make your CFD a true success.

    Even in Europe the most that we can realistically hope for in most places is that the elected authorities and the city's administrators will agree (usually rather reluctantly) to have some kind of 'mini-day'. This has been the prevailing pattern in most places thus far. In these cases what happens is that a few central blocks are cordoned off and given over to walkers and cyclists for a few hours. But then if we look to the cities of North America and Down Under which have over the last decades more or less been purpose-built or retrofitted for cars, it's hard to see how we can reasonably expect to get many of them on board for such an undertaking, at least from a city-wide perspective.

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    The Do-it-Yourself Car Free Day

    Happily, even if your city's administration is not yet prepared to bite the bullet and take all the cars off the streets for a day, this does not mean that you, your family, your fellow students and co-workers, your football club or local labor union can't give it a try. And if you and a few other citizen-pioneers like you manage to pull off your own car free day demo this year, the next time around there are going to be more people and places that are ready to join you.

    With a careful eye to getting the message across, Earth Car Free Day 2001 is going to celebrate the concept of the Self-Organized Car Free Day. We are already working with national and city groups, and have every expectation that a good number of these are going to work out with city-wide programs. But if we ever to have 2001 CFDs this year -- or why not? two million and one -- we are going to have to do some imaginative outreaching. And a lot of self-organizing.

    A key tool that is being developed here at Car Free Central are the several dozen, expert-led Do-it-Yourself Kits that are under development to support these grassroots efforts.

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    The Pioneer Cities and The Challenge

    One of the things that we can hope for is that we shall eventually find one or more mayors or city councils that, while not yet ready or able to actually rope off all or some section of their city and put a halt to all cars on their own, may be ready to take the position of creating an environment that will be open to projects and proposals from people and groups across the city. We call this the Mayor's Challenge, and invite you to click here if you wish to see more on this important option.

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