[sustran] Re: Brainpower needed

Car Busters carbusters at ecn.cz
Tue Mar 7 07:21:02 JST 2000


Dear SUSTRAN and Alt-Trans listserve-ees,

A few things to clarify: Firstly, Eric's "Brainpower needed" proposal
was to be something to happen fairly quickly in the Americas to follow
up on Bogota, not, as I understand it, something to happen as late as
September under the name World Car-Free Day or another, tamer one. We
had actually sent our World Car-Free Day proposal to Eric, and he
expressed support for it, a few days before he wrote the "Brainpower
needed" message. So let's be clear that we're talking about two
different events here.

My initial reaction is that we should avoid two international
single-day events on roughly the same topic, and that what the
Americas might need now might be best accomplished by thinking beyond
the single-thematic-day concept. Also, it doesn't seems there's enough
time to pull off a well-organised international day of action much
before September anyway.

Regarding the names proposed, they don't seem so bad for the first
couple minutes of a brainstorm, but very, very far from a name to
settle on. Isn't anyone out there in marketing or advertising?
But I actually don't agree that we need to avoid using "car-free" in
North America. The boldness of the World Car-Free Day name was
precisely the point -- to push the envelope, to say and do what no one
else will dare to say and do, to make few friends and take no
prisoners -- and this is nearly the only way to get attention in the
United States. As the Situationists used to say, "Soyez realiste;
demandez l'impossible." (Be realistic; demand the impossible.) Be wise
and be strategic of course, but being overly cautious and entirely
unprovocative, will be, and has been, one of our downfalls.

I could imagine every American radio talk-show host putting in his/her
two cents about World Car-Free Day, but any kind of Traffic Reduction
Day would barely get a mention. This isn't about making friends; it's
about being on the scandalous, notorious cutting edge that will get
talked about and end up getting the issues advanced and taken
seriously one of these days (but certainly not today in Middle
America, no matter how you disguise your true intentions by putting a
Mom-and-apple-pie [albeit boring] name between you and the public).
Something with the title and spirit of Traffic Reduction Day is
exactly the sort of thing that keeps nearly everyone but an isolated
segment of middle-aged men yawning at this movement (offensive as it
may sound to say so to these listserves).

What we need is some serious rejuvenation, revitalisation, kick in the
pants. So, in that spirit, we submit the following proposal for a
September 21 World Car-Free Day, as published in our March monthly
bulletin...

Randy Ghent



WORLD CAR-FREE DAY: A PROPOSAL
(yes, it's long, but please read and comment)

   Car Busters is hereby putting out a proposal for an annual World
Car-Free Day for September 21. The idea is to expand upon the
September 22 governmental European Car-Free Day, which will be truly
European for the first time this year. The World Car-Free Day would
fall on the day before, a Thursday, which, according to years of
experience with car-free days, is the optimum day on which to hold
such an event (see www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/ for the report
"Thursday: Breakthrough Strategies for Reducing Car Dependence in
Cities").
   Car-free days date back to the 1970's, but instead of being limited
to single-day events organised by government, World Car-Free Day would
be pitched as a day to "go car-free and don't stop" and focus on
personal change beyond the one-day event, as with the car addiction
theme, "don't quit quitting." There could even be a "count-down"
leading up to the day, with people suggested to cut back their car use
gradually each day step by step to wean themselves off the car.
   Through a sophisticated and "professional" campaign utilising the
media, downloadable posters adaptable to any language, a 30-second TV
spot, a web site and ads placed for free in various publications,
World Car-Free Day would take on both industry and the image that
advertising has given the car (sexy, macho, hip and cool, sporty,
high-status, etc.).
   Press attention would seem promising, since the media have been
desperate to find new angles to the hot car-free day story. With World
Car-Free Day, we as the grassroots car-free movement frame the issues,
choose the slogans, and design the poster and supporting materials. In
a sense, we subvert car-free day, taking it away from the environment
ministers and municipal governments, bringing it back to the
grassroots. The campaign should be clever, polished, well thought-out,
splashy, hard-hitting, humorous, radical and aimed a wider public
beyond those already convinced. The trick is to successfully combine
these characteristics, with care taken that the movement is advanced
by the effort, rather than unintentionally set back.
   World Car-Free Day’s promoters (the collective "we") would attempt
to get a large number of groups around the world to sign on in support
of the effort and organise their memberships. The day would be taken
more seriously if we got, say, 200 groups to sign on, representing all
the continents. The web site and the posters would suggest four or
five simple things that people can do, and the web site would also
offer more ambitious personal action ideas. A video called
"Autosaurus" (produced by Adbusters, Canada) could be modified for the
occasion for about $100. This 30-second spot could be run on
television to announce the event. Additional attention could be
brought to the campaign if/when television stations refuse to run the
spot, despite a willing payer.
   In sum, World Car-Free Day would be organised very similarly to the
Buy Nothing Day campaign launched by Adbusters (while taking into
account critique of that event). Only the issue is different and the
event more or less already exists, but lacks the geographic scope and
grassroots radicalism that we’d all collectively bring to it. Car
Busters, through its magazine and other channels, would take a
leadership role in promoting the event, producing the materials,
offering its e-mail listserve for communication among groups, and
publishing coverage of the event after-the-fact. We also can also take
advantage of a volunteer graphic artist who has just joined us from
Finland.
   The Towards Car-Free Cities II conference (Timisoara, Romania,
April) could be used as a forum for developing the idea and building
international (especially Eastern European) participation in it. After
the initial materials (web site, posters, etc.) are produced, the Velo
Mondiale 2000 conference (Amsterdam, June) could then be one primary
place to expand the idea to other groups worldwide.
   Every aspect of this proposal is up for debate, elaboration and
change. No one is going to copyright World Car-Free Day; it will be up
to everyone to decide locally what they want to do with the idea.
   Please send in your feedback!

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