It's time to get started. Earth Car Free Day 2002, the second of the name, is set to take place on Monday, April 22nd.
Time remaining
to prepare for Earth CFD 2002
What's this?
In the weeks preceding the first Earth Car Free Day organized in cities around the world on April 19th, 2001 over sixteen thousand people visited this site for information and help for their projects. The heavily interactive
process engaged by the preparations led to a number of findings. The first is that if the car free day concept as set out here is valid, then every day of the year is a valid candidate for well prepared projects, probes, demonstrations, and open public discussions. The second was the request that we continue to make the information and tools gathered here available to support a wide range of future projects and initiatives 365 days of the year. To accomplish this we decided to morph the original CFD focus into the much broader sustainable transportation thrust of which the "Days" are but one small, if highly interesting, part. You are thus visiting here while this transition is in process.
This site is under continuous development, with new content being added daily by cooperating groups around the world. The What's New section provides direct access to these events and this new information with a single click. It gives ready access to all the latest "Parts of the Solution" profiles coming in to the World Database and advance information on the Next Great CFD Event.
The "Trickle-Up" Approach to Policy & Practice
The traditional model for transport policy and decision making has been strongly centralized, top-down and heavily expert-oriented. And this model is now exactly at the core of the problems we now face. It also has persitently assumed that most if not all the answers to the transport problems of our cites relied in "transport solutions" -- so-called "in the box thinking". The Commons proposes that this old model needs drastic revision, and suggests that we now need to take advantage of the fact that we have in our cities many bright and capable people and groups who should be actively factored into the decision and solution process. We call this the trickle-up approach --
a shining model for citizen consultation and action, and for democracy, for the 21st century.
The Edifice Complex
The main argument of The Commons concerning the push to sustainability in matters of not only transport in cities is that we have collectively fallen victim to something that has been called the Edifice Complex. The hallmark of this approach boils down to the following brutal statement: "whenever we see a social problem we automatically assume that the answer is a building, so we start to pour concrete". When it comes to matters of transport in cities however, and particularly cities that are in trouble, we stress that the best way to start is to pour all available resources into the challenge of better management, control and understanding of what we have already built. And then, once we have cleared things up a bit, we can then see what if anything we have to pour concrete for.
Pattern Break?
The core of the pattern break approach to sustainability resides in understanding that people, you and me that is, are largely inertial creatures and that as such we tend to be victims to the world, not as we want or need it but as we happen to find it at our doorstep this morning. And invariably there are always a lot of good reasons for either doing nothing or at least nothing today. One of these being that we do not perhaps know enough so what we need to do is a lot more studies. The pattern break approach by contrast says that it is unlikely that under "normal" circusmtances we will ever be able even to see what it is we need, if we are not to change our entire way of thinking, our mental architecture if you will. To which we propose that one good way of possibly achieving this is by introducing some major, possibly very short term shifts in the actual environment and seeing if that can help us see more clearly. One of these might be a day without cars.
The First Earth Car Free Day
The first Earth Car Free Day took place this year on April 19th, 2001. Led by a core team from The Commons and supported by Earth Day Network, the goal was to spark and support thoughtful events and striking demonstrations around the world: all
based on the common theme of personal responsibility, citizen-based activism, and vital new public/private/community partnerships. The balance of accomplishment: a wide range of self-organized events, large and small, in hundreds of cities involving millions of people all over the world. Plus the permanent infrastructure of freely available information, tools and materials that you now find here.
Most of us, to be perfectly frank, are a bit of both. But, knowing that, the critical step at this point is for us each to take stock and decide which we want to be. So click here
to see if we may already have you down as Part of the Solution? If not, and you want to be, all you have to do is click here and get started.
