Carfree Day? What a waste

Mark Richardson

WHEELS EDITOR

World Carfree Day came and went this week. Did anybody notice?

It's an admirable idea that – believe it or not – we support at Wheels. Well, we support the original idea of it being "In Town, Without My Car!" day, as it's still called in the U.K., where it began in the late '90s.

The intention was – still is, for many – to demonstrate that cities are more pleasant places when they're not overrun by cars, and there are alternatives. For that one day, last Tuesday, drivers were to find a different way to travel.

In hundreds of towns around the world, areas are closed to vehicles so that residents can discover a peaceful place to question the balance between cars and people.

According to Britain's Environmental Transport Association, which started the whole thing, "we do not want to put cars on trial or to condemn the desire for mobility – the idea is to reconsider urban transport with the prospect of sharing streets more efficiently."

Sounds great. At Wheels, we love our cars and trucks and motorbikes, but we hate sitting in traffic. Cars should be for driving, not for commuting, unless the public transit option is too inconvenient or costly – which it usually is.

Unfortunately, the designation of Sept. 22 as World Carfree Day has been taken over by the more radical World Carfree Network, based in Prague. According to Tanja Eskola, the group's coordinator/fund development manager, "I consider all cars as clunkers, flopped vehicles failing to meet any criteria of sensible means of transport."

So the day has become a time to promote the idea of banning cars from cities, period. And because of that more extreme view before it could even get properly started, it's taken less seriously by most observers, which is a shame.

Here in Toronto, the organization Streets are for People! promoted its gathering at Trinity Bellwoods park on a blog by saying: "Join over 100,000 million (sic) people in more than 1,500 cities worldwide to celebrate a move away from car culture ... Bring horns and bells and drums, and a sense of good cheer."

I think I'll give that one a miss.

For much of the work day, the City closed the stretch of Yonge St. that runs alongside the Eaton Centre, which served to annoy and frustrate drivers. Apparently, Mayor David Miller gave a speech at lunchtime.

I say "apparently" because I couldn't find anyone who attended this event. I heard on the radio that a few hundred people turned up somewhere and waved some banners, but that was all. This was the same station that had a reporter through the day saying, "Well, I can still see lots of cars..."

The Toronto Star sent a videographer to film the students at Ryerson who laid some sod on Gould St. beside their campus to promote it as a pedestrian thoroughfare, but that was the most exciting part of the day. The videographer, Randy Risling, told me that when he pulled up at Ryerson, a guy from Global TV drove up right behind him and looked relieved. "Thank God – something to film at last!" he told Risling. "There's nothing happening for this anywhere else!"

I spoke this week with Glenn Gumulka, the executive director of Smart Commute Mississauga, which promotes alternatives to single-person cars as transport. Car pools are good; bicycles are great; buses and trains are fabulous. Anything but one-person, one-car.

This year, Smart Commute Mississauga decided not to organize a special event around Carfree Day because, as Gumulka put it, "it's a lot of work to do a big event and we found that with the people we got to the event, we were kind of preaching to the converted."

Instead, it took on a more realistic week-long challenge to encourage commuters to find another way to get to work. Entrants could register to win prizes, including a train trip to Quebec City, and along the way, they might discover an alternative to their car commuting.

Now that's more like it – an understanding of both the benefits and faults of cars. That'll work.

After all, if you go to the other extreme in North America and take the all-or-nothing approach, as we found out this week, you'll end up with nothing.

Mark Richardson is the editor of Wheels. mrichardson@thestar.ca

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