[sustran] "We also have to give credit to Bogotá "

[Eric Britton]

Thanks so much for that good heads-up Carlos.  Bogotá of course is also well
known as one of the real Car Free Day heroes. But actually I am not sure
that it gets the first place on the historic list, though it certainly makes
a handy addition to the quite long list of previous events you will find if
you click the top menu item TimeLine at www.carfreedays.newmobility.org . If
you can check and give me a line or two of detail on this, we will be
pleased to add it to this good list. 

 

If you have read the original Thursday paper, you will have noted the early
para on this which reads as follows::

 

“There is of course nothing new about a proposal for a car-free day. In
addition to a growing number of small city center closure projects and
pedestrian zones of varying sizes and sorts, over the last decades there
have been literally hundreds of cases of cities that have banned car traffic
for a single day, some special event, or during some particular (usually
crisis) period.”  

 

My point challenge was and is to see how we might put such happy occasional
events into a broader strategic action framework.

 

And of course one of the most important outcomes of this entire
collaborative project was that it paved the way for our terrific
collaboration in early 2000 to lay the base for Bogotá’s first ever Car Free
Day, for which your mayor, Enrique Peñalosa and I were jointly awarded the
Stockholm Challenge Environment Award for precisely this collaboration.

 

Team work. That’s what we do. 

 

Eric Britton

 

 


Timeline: Some Major Car Free (Days) Benchmarks

	

The following chronology assembles some of the main benchmark events of the
last decades, which together have gradually built on each other's
accomplishments to leave us today with a movement that is, to say the least,
only now beginning to get under way. (Please understand that this is
intended only as a starting point and there are a very large number of
cities and events that are not covered here. Of course. But it does hit a
number of the main international highlights, and certainly can serve to give
you an idea of the increasing momentum of the C/FD movement in cities around
the world.) 

1.	1958, New York. Demonstrations of neighbors of the Washington Square
Park area of New York City eventually block proposed extension of Fifth
Avenue, which would have eliminated this popular public park and social
oasis. 
2.	1961, New York. One of the ring leaders of the 1958 demonstration,
Jane Jacobs <http://www.people.virginia.edu/%7Eplan303/bio.html> , publishes
The
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/067974195X/o/qid=950088542/sr=8-1/10
2-2342361-8148863>  Death and Life of Great American Cities, Vintage Books,
opening up the discussions
<http://architecture.about.com/arts/architecture/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site
=http://www.jacobs97.com/>  of car restraint in cities 
3.	Autumn, 1968, Groningen, The Netherlands. First neighborhood Woonerf

The goal of this at first entirely illegal project led by local residents
was to claim back the street for cars and create safe space for people 
4.	1972, Delft, The Netherlands. First "official" Woonerf opened 
5.	1973, Abbaye de Royaumont, France
The OECD Development Center and EcoPlan (The Commons) organize 4 day
international brainstorm on combining car restraint and non-conventional or
"in-between" transit (paratransit) in Third World cities 
6.	January-February, 1974, Switzerland
Four Car Free Sundays organized and greatly enjoyed by all during "Oil
Crisis" 
7.	1981, East Germany (DDR). First German Car Free Day takes place. 
8.	October 1988, Paris.
<http://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/general/access-1988.htm> "Cities without
Cars?" program begins. 
International, unstructured, non-bureaucratic, topic-driven, long term
cooperative program launched by EcoPlan and The Commons. (Later morphs into
today's New Mobility Agenda 
9.	September 1991, New York. First International Conference on
Auto-Free Cities. 
Organized by Transportation <http://www.transalt.org/campaigns/cpark/>
Alternatives 
10.	September 1992, San Francisco. Critical Mass
<http://michaelbluejay.com/cm/> 
More or less anarchist, at least self-organizing, group cranks up to take
back the streets from cars. Still at it. 
11.	Fall 1992, Paris, France. 
First @ccess Forum opens in cooperation with ECTF on Internet. Car Free day
concept discussed and expanded on this international list. 
12.	Fall 1992, Ottawa, Canada. 
Auto-Free Ottawa <http://www.flora.org/afo/>  Newsletter started. 
13.	March 1994, Amsterdam. Car Free Cities Network
<http://www.eurocities.org/cfc/about/>  
Launched by DG XI and Eurocities 
14.	14 October 1994, Toledo, Spain. Thursday:
<http://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/general/thursday-full.htm>  Car Free Day 
Proposal, work plan and public call for international collaboration
presented at Spanish "Ciudades Accesibles" Congress. (Representatives of Car
Free Cities and future Reykjavik, Bath and La Rochelle CFD projects all
present.) 
15.	Winter 1994/5: Long term international contact/support CFD program
created on the Web under The Commons <http://ecoplan.org>  and the New
Mobility Agenda <http://newmobility.org>  
16.	8 May 1996, Copenhagen: Copenhagen Declaration
<http://www.edc.eu.int/cfc/copenhagen.html> 
Issued by international meeting of European government groups. 
17.	5 June 1996, Reykjavik, Iceland. Car Free
<http://194.7.159.227/GEDdata/1999/03/23/00000003/102E.HTM>  Day 
Organized by local government and held in Iceland's capital city. 
18.	11th June 1996, Bath, U.K. Bath
<http://web.ukonline.co.uk/Members/bath.environment/Car%20Free1.htm>  Car
Free Day 
First British Car Free day. (A Green Transport Week street party had already
been organised in Bath in June 1995.) 
19.	1997, U.K. National <http://www.eta.co.uk/%29>  Car Free Days 
The ETA steps forward and co-ordinates first three annual CFD's in Britain. 
20.	9 September 1997, La Rochelle, France.
<http://www.iclei.org/egpis/fgpc-142.html>  Journée sans voiture
Lead by Mayor Michel Crépeau and Jacques Tallut, La Rochelle organizes
France's first real CFD. 
21.	21 October, 1997, Paris. Thursday: Car Free Day
<http://www.egroups.com/files/Car%20Freeday/>  proposal, presentation made
to French Ministry of the Environment. 
Proposal from this Consortium made as part of The Common's
<http://www.egroups.com/files/Car%20Freeday/> "Smogbuster" package for
fighting car-related pollution and other problems in French cities. (The
Ministry later uses this foundation to launch its own "En ville, sans ma
voiture?" program one year later. 
22.	26 October - 1 November 1997, Lyons, France. First Towards Car Free
<http://www.antenna.nl/eyfa/trafrep.htm>  Cities Conference 
Organized by International Youth for Action and other. CarBusters program
launched. 
23.	Winter 1997, Amsterdam. Car Free Times
<http://www.Car%20Free.com/cft/>  
Car Free Times publishes Volume 1, Number 1 (with no public support and made
freely available). 
24.	Winter, 1997, Paris. @World Car
<http://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/cf_home.htm#report>  Free Day Consortium 
This open NGO site was first established by The Commons as part of their
long term New <http://www.ecoplan.org/NewMobility/index.htm>  Mobility
program on the WWW to support Car Free day organization and expert follow-up
in cities all over the world. 
25.	June 21 1998, Mobil Ohne Auto
<http://www.mobilohneauto.de/index2.php> , Germany-wide Car Free Mobility
Day 
26.	September 22, 1998, "
<http://www.environnement.gouv.fr/actua/ops/Sansvoiture/base.htm> En ville,
sans ma voiture?", France. 
French Ministry of the Environment and 34 French cities organize "En
<http://www.environnement.gouv.fr/actua/ops/Sansvoiture/base.htm>  ville,
sans ma voiture?" ("A day in the city without my car?). 
27.	December 1, 1999, Britain. 
First National ETA <http://www.eta.co.uk/news/newsview.asp?n=413>  Car Free
Planning support (UK) Sharing information on planning for European Car Free
Day in Britain 
28.	September 19, 1999, The Netherlands. 
First National Car Free
<http://ecoplan.org/Car%20Freeday/national/cfd-neths99.html>  Sunday in the
Netherlands 
29.	22 September 1999, First European "Pilot Car Free Day". 
On Wednesday 22 September 1999, 66 French towns participated in "En ville,
sans ma voiture ?", (2nd edition), while in parallel 92 Italian towns
organized the first Italian National Car Free Day, "In città senza
<http://www.enea.it/senzauto/guida_Organizzativa.htm>  la mia auto". The
Canton of Geneva also participated in what later was later called the first
European "Pilot Day", wherein all the participating cities designated Car
Free areas in their canters. 
30.	Sunday 26th of September 1999, First Belgian CFD announced 
31.	1 December 1999, UK. 
Consortium of interested individuals and groups sets up first independent
national support <http://www.egroups.com/group/etaCar%20Freeday/>  group on
Web to promote CFD's in Britain (see menu to left for direct link) 
32.	Sunday, February 6, 2000, Italy
Environment Minister Edo Ronchi opens first of 4 successive Car Free Sundays
<http://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/italy/italy1.htm>  in Italy, to take
place on first Sunday of month for next four months. 
33.	24 February 2000, Bogotá, Colombia. The Bogotá
<http://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/bogota/bogota1.htm#day>  Challenge 
The City of Bogotá organizes in cooperation with the World Car Free Day
Consortium Sin mi <http://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/cf_home.htm>  carro en
Bogotá, the world's first large scale "Thursday" CFD project, and launches
its Bogotá <http://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/bogota/bogota1.htm#day>
Challenge to the rest of the world. 
34.	5 June 2000. The Commons win Stockholm
<http://www1.challenge.stockholm.se/article.asp?NewsId=235>  Challenge
Environment Prize for outstanding accomplishment in supporting February 2000
Bogota Car Free Day, and invites the Mayor of Bogota to accept the award as
a joint prize demonstrating the potential for technology-mediated
international collaboration in support of major sustainability projects. 
35.	10-18 June 2000, U.K. Green Transport Week <http://www.eta.co.uk/> ,
U.K. 
36.	24-27 June 2000, Bremen, GermanyCar Free
<http://www.bremen-initiative.de/conferences/index.html>  Cities conference
in Bremen 
37.	21 September 2000. First CarBusters
<http://www.carbusters.ecn.cz/Car%20Freeday/index.htm>  call for a World Car
Free Day inviting independent projects to organize on that day, and later
announced as a planned annual Open event. (Car Busters asks us to support
their project, which we, as always, do.) 
38.	22 September 2000. First European Car Free Day
<http://www.22september.org/> 
The government sponsors reported that 760 European towns jointly organized
the first pan-European "In town, without my car!" day. 
39.	14 October 2000. Chengdu City of Sichuan Province, People's Republic
of China, started the first ever
<http://ecoplan.org/carfreeday/EarthCFD/general/chengdu.htm> "Car Free Day"
of the nation. 
40.	29 October 2000. Bogotá holds world's first Car Free
<http://www.ecoplan.org/votebogota2000/>  Referendum (which passes with
flying colors) 
41.	1 November 2000. Earth
<http://ecoplan.org/carfreeday/EarthCFD/ec_index.htm>  Car Free Day program
launched by The Commons and WC/FD Consortium in cooperation with Earth Day
Network. Preparations get under way for first ECFD on 19 April 2001. 
42.	1 February 2001. Bogota launches first ECFD 2001 project with its
second Dia sin Carro. 
43.	Spring 2001.
<http://associazioni.comune.fi.it/citta.ciclabile/iniziative/domeniche2001.h
tml>  "Domeniche ecologiche 2001" - Italian Ministry of the Environment
organises first Ecological Sundays Car Free program, running on five
weekends in 
44.	19 April 2001. First Earth
<http://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/earthcfd/index.htm>  Car Free Day
More than 300 hundred groups and cities around the world participate in this
first ECFD organized by The Commons WC/FD program and Earth Day Network(the
detailed results of which can be accessed here
<http://ecoplan.org/ECFD_Databas/index.html> ). 
45.	May-December 2001. Numerous independent Days and demonstrations
organized and reported and supported by the World Car/Free Day Consortium of
The Commons. 
46.	September 2001. Second European CFD <http://www.22september.org/>
and second CarBusters <http://www.carbusters.ecn.cz/Car%20Freeday/index.htm>
World Car Free Day organized. 
47.	19 September 2001 Shed Your Car
<http://www.freonet.net.au/shed-your-car/index01.html>  Day - FremantleFirst
Australian CFD 
48.	September 22nd, 2001 Toronto became first Canadian and North
American city to officially host a Car Free Day. 
49.	November 2001. United Nations contacts The Commons and proposes a
joint world level project: the United Nations Car Free Days Programme
<Http://uncfd.org> , to be organized as a run-up to the Johannesburg World
Summit on Sustainable Development, demonstrating that this approach is one
that can make a difference. 
50.	6-8 February 2002. First United National Regional Car Free Days
Practicum <http://www.uncfd.org/>  organized for Latin America, in
cooperation with and support of the third Car Free Day in Bogota Colombia.
Practicum brings together a delegation of mayors from across the region to
observe and exchange information on the CFD approach for their cities. (The
Commons participation in all stages is "CO2-free", mediated by the Internet
and an expanding array of new communications and distance work technologies.
) 
51.	8-10 May 2002. Second UN Car Free Day
<http://www.carfre.org/index2.php>  Demonstration and Practicum for Regional
Mayors taking place in Fremantle, West Australia. 
52.	19 April 2002. First European Mobility Week launched by EC in
Brussels
<http://www.mobilityweek-europe.org/part/campaign_presentation_2002.html>
Planned as annual event in September around their "In town without my car!"
program. 
53.	2002. World <http://www.worldcarfree.net/>  Car Free Network
founded, building on the work of CarBusters. <http://www.carbusters.org/>  
54.	2002. Canadian Car Free Day Network
<http://www.Car%20Freeday.ca/index.php>  established 
55.	Sept. 2003 Montreal became the first Canadian city to hold a major
downtown, weekday street closure. 
56.	Sept. 2003
<http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/content/transport-and-streets/community-transp
ort-initiatives/in-town-without-my-car-2003.en>  Camden (UK)celebrates first
Travelwise Week building on Car Free Days celebrated every year since 2000 
57.	July 2004. Towards Carfree Cities III, Berlin
<http://www.mobilityweek-europe.org/part/campaign_presentation_2002.html>
Organized by World Car Free Network 
58.	19 to 24 September 2004. Toronto's
<http://www.ecoplan.org/carfreeday/general/toronto.html>  first New Mobility
Week launches a public enquiry into new less-car packages of policies and
measures 
59.	22 September 2004  <http://www.22september.org/index.php> "In town,
without my car!", organized by the European Commission and national partners

60.	16 to September 2004 European Mobility Week
<http://www.mobilityweek-europe.org/part/campaign_presentation_2002.html> 

Etc. etc.