<html> <head> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 10 (filtered)"> <style>  </style> </head> <body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple> <div class=Section1> Dear Friends,   Even great ideas need to be rethought and renewed from time to time.   Since 1994, this program has been called World Car Free Days and has sat here at http://worldcarfreeday.com seating away and trying to do its part in getting its message across. And what is that message? Well not so much Car Free Days per se, but rather, as we put it in the opening lines of this fine café: “Not quite zero cars (in most places) but, let us say, a lot less cars, a more tranquil environment, and a lot more safe and happy people.”   So here is my question to you and I would very much like to have your counsel.   Is it now time to change our name to: “The Less Cars in Cities Open Collaborative”? Or something along those lines?   Now this is not by any means to suggest that I am running away from the idea of organizing your own Car Free Day. Heaven forbid! as my dear grandmother would have put it. A Car Free Day got right can be a wonderful instrument for mobilizing opinion, building local consistencies for change, for fewer cars and for better and softer (and more efficient) cities. But it is only one of the instruments that we need to be considering.   I probably should add by way of further background in the case you are not aware of it, we also have a collaborative program, the New Mobility Agenda (at <a href="http://www.newmobility.org/">http://www.newmobility.org</a>), but the focus of the agenda is much wider than ‘less cars’ strategies and events. Still, you can see how they relate. But that said, I also think that there is a place here for a more focused (and maybe at times a bit wilder) program.   Thanks for letting me know what you think we should if anything do with this. In the meantime, what about checking into the   Eric Britton   PS. By the way and for the record and just to be sure, this is not (exactly) an anti-car forum. There are plenty of them around – check <a href="http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B2GGGL_enFR177&q=anti-car">http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B2GGGL_enFR177&q=anti-car</a> for a list of more than 300,000. What you have here a 'lots less cars in cities’ forum which is, as you will see, a very different animal indeed.     </div> </body> </html>