Brainpower needed

[Lake Sagaris]

Alternate transport day
People's transport day

But BEST I think for publicity/education/success: Healthy transport day; or
Healthy and Happy -- Transportation of the People, for the People, By the
People -- ie walking and biking in particular are extremely healthy, also
highlights that busing reduces air pollution... Mixing it with the idea of
democracy and equality can help bring on board people who feel excluded or
victimized when told they shouldn't drive or own a car, which is a major
aspiration for many in developing countries and a symbol of democracy (to
them). It also helps to upgrade the image of bike-riding, for example,
which in a country like Chile is considered "lower-class" at least by
drivers, because it is primarily working class people who use them to commute.

Basically, forget about the car and focus on the alternatives that make
this option worthwhile from the point of view of human health and the
environment.

If we develop this idea a bit further -- I think as a general rule of thumb
it's easier to interest and motivate people if they feel they have a
personal stake in something, and personal health is always an issue of
great interest, particularly in developed countries, but also in many
developing countries. I remember a friend who's a transport engineer
reeling off figures on higher incidence of heart attacks and other
life-threatening illnesses among car drivers, that would fit well here.
Rather than asking people to make what they feel is an enormous sacrifice
(many drivers feel their car is part of them) for the common good,
education can be phrased in terms of:

Back Pain? Take a positive step toward health: Walk to work  or

A general slogan along the lines of:
Walk, Bike, Ride -- It's your health at stake. Or

Breathe easier -- cut down on stress.
Grab a cab and enjoy all the benefits of having your own chauffeur. (This
obviously directed at car drivers: see below on taxis)

Breathe easier -- 
Walk, bike, ride -- put the fun back into moving around the city.

Make the city your gym.
Walk a few blocks and catch a bus.
Breathe deep and count every staircase (to the subway) as part of your
personal health regime.
Ride a bike -- rocket to work (or school).

Take control of your health
Walk, bike, ride to work today. You'll feel the difference. 

Add some relevant facts -- heart attacks, cancer, quality old age vs.
severe disability, etc. 
Then specific posters (or TV or radio flashes)

What do most doctors recommend to prevent heart attacks?
Walking... You can do it today -- to the nearest subway, bus stop or work
itself. What a great way to start the day!

Remember when you were young and the world was your oyster?
Recapture that feeling today -- ride your bike to work!

Even busing fits within this framework, especially if you turn the walk to
the bus stop into a joyous morning stroll.

ON TAXIS: I also think transport and other planners have a fatal blind spot
-- taxis. I know these can't compete with just about any other mode for
efficiency, lower emissions, etc., but the way the nicotine patch is to the
smoker trying to quit, is the way taxis should be treated with regard to
individual car drivers. Taxis can be organized, regulated and given special
privileges, which make them a better and faster alternative to the
individual car than they are already are naturally. Car drivers will not
leave their own wheel without the safety net of a quick fix if they're
stuck somewhere and in a hurry -- that's where having quality taxi services
available (I'm talking about city centers and other urban centers here of
course, this is not a rural model) is crucial to tempting people to leave
their car at home. For taxi drivers, it's cheaper and more efficient for
them if they don't have to cruise looking for passengers, and if they have
special lanes (in Santiago at least there are many streets not used for
buses, where a special taxi lane would a) discourage individual car driving
by increasing congestion for individual drivers; b) speed up movement,
particularly over the medium distances; c) reduce the use of scarce land
resources for parking and free it up for parks/greenspace; d) a
well-thought out system would also save on fuel and reduce emissions, by
allowing taxis to function with maximum efficiency. This could make taxi
drivers a good constituency group for pressuring for sustainable traffic,
rather than treating them as an anomaly that should be phased out.

There's a lot you can do in the way of publicity for this too -- 

Stressed out from the daily commute? Wouldn't it be nice to just sit back
and prepare your day, without worrying about crazy drivers or finding a
cheap parking space? Have you thought about having your own chauffeur? You
can do it. Thousands (millions whatever the figure for a particular place)
already do. ...Then you can pitch both buses/subways and taxis. Join us on
(date of Healthy Transport Day)... 

I know including a pro-taxi focus within a larger effort to build support
for and use of sustainable transport is pretty unorthodox and usually
ignored or frowned upon, but if it's the real world we want to change, we
have to add a lot of strategic steps before we can hope to reach our ideal
goals. I gave up a car years ago and now thoroughly enjoy mixing walking
with the subway, buses and -- when I'm in a hurry -- a taxi. It really has
been an enormous stress-reliever and has improved my work, since I can
focus on what I'm doing and not worry about the driving. But I always know
that when time's pinching I can grab a cab. It's much more time-efficient,
not to mention cheaper, than trying to operate a car in the city. 

Anyway, this is just off the top of my head. Hope it's not too long.

All best
Lake Sagaris

Ciudad Viva (Living City) 
Santiago, Chile

At 05:28 PM 3/2/00 +0100, you wrote:
>Dear Friends,
>
>We are trying hard to arrange some high profile, successful follow-ups to
>last week's impressive Bogotá  Car Free Day experience, including in North
>America.  This note concerns a specific problem we face if we are ever going
>to make some near term inroads there.  Here's the problem that we need your
>help with.
>
>For a variety of reasons, we need to find a new name for any such
>demonstration projects there. If we are so bald as to call it a "Car Free"
>Day in the States, we know in advance that we are going to have a lot more
>enemies and resistance than friends and support. But we want to take
>advantage of our momentum and do something there now, and so... we need to
>find a new name for our event.
>
>We do know what we want: (a) to get 'all' the cars out of the traffic stream
>for one thoughtful day, while (b) encouraging a multiplicity of innovations
>and careful, open, public inspection by any and all over that same period.
>
>One suggestion I pondered momentarily was that of a "Clean Transport Day",
>to which my reaction was (predictably?) less than tepid and for reasons that
>I am confident the members of this group will well understand.
>
>Of course something like "Sustainable Transport Day" might be an idea, but
>who in the world knows what "sustainable" means?
>
>So, not to put too fine a point to this... HELP!!!
>
>Eric Britton
>
>ecopl at n___technology, economy, society
>Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara, F-75006 Paris, France
>24 hour phone/voicemail/fax numbers: +331 5301 2896.
>Email postmaster at ecoplan.org   Direct line: +331 4326 1323
>Videoconferencing/group work +331 4441 6340 (1-4)
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>
>
>