[sustran] Car free day reports - ex. Europe

[ecopl at n.adsl]

Dear Colleagues,


We have been asked by our good friends at the Italian Ministry of the
Environment if we lend a hand and cobble together for them a short note
summarizing the state of play on the car free day front, ex. Europe.  For
some reason when they called this morning  I said yes -- and then they added
“can we have it by tomorrow night?”  Aaarrgh.

Anyway, if you happen to have any information or links which report on car
free day initiatives outside of the European Union area, I would be grateful
to hear from you so that we can fold this information into the overview that
they are presently working on and which is to be shortly posted on the CFD
Web site.

*      *      *

More ambitiously, and if available, it will be good to have handouts,
announcements, instructions, photos, graphics (e.g., the logo if any),
newspaper reports, poll results and other forms of feedback including
personal commentaries  Also if there is anything which we can all see via
Links, that is the most efficient (especially when the linked materials are
explained by a line or two of background so that the reader knows what it is
and why it's going to be worth the trip).

If you go to the @World CarFree Day site at http://ecoplan.org/carfreeday
and click the CFD 2000 Inventory link, you will see that some information
has already been posted on the Bangkok experience and a few other, and while
all of it comes from the media, it has been filtered by someone with deep
knowledge of the local scene so makes interesting reading.  For my part, I
spent the Day and the week in Bilbao as a guest of the city observing,
interacting and commenting on the day, preparations, accomplishments  and
follow-up intentions there.  Hope to get a report to the group on this over
the weekend.



*      *      *

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Because it's the feedback cycle that the whole Car Free Day thing is above
all really about.  Both the feedback from the people in the streets to the
political authorities and demonstrators (our elected and paid for by us
public SERVANTS), and to the community as a whole (which is thus empowered
by this cooperative exercise).  Then too there is the whole wonderful
process of 'cross-learning' as we look at and learn from each other (which
of course is why we are all here in this forum in the first place, n'est-ce
pas?).  Until now, most of the car free day projects known to us have been
very short indeed on good feedback, and that is a real problem.

Our hope is that this inventory and its contents will not only be useful for
you, but will also encourage you to post the results of your Day or program.
I would like to think that in due course we will have several dozen entries
here so that anyone who wishes to consider a car free day in their city or
neighborhood in the future will have this as a firm base for understanding
better how to go about it.

I think we all look forward to this.



Regards,

Eric Britton

ecopl at n ___  technology, economy, society  ___
Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara, 75006 Paris, France
Eric.Britton at ecoplan.org     URL www.ecoplan.org
Telephone +331 4326 1323
Voice/Videoconference +331.4441.6340 (1-4)
Fax + Voicemail: +1 888 522 6419 (toll free)



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