Get the inside scoop on all this weekend’s car-free festivities

The flyer for the 2010 Car Free Festival is now available:
Car Free Day Flyer – Part 1 (PDF)
Car Free Day Flyer – Part 2 (PDF)

Check it out to find out about all the happenings this weekend, including maps of each festival footprint and some teasers for the types of entertainment and other activities that will be at each location.

Stay connected with us on Twitter and Facebook

Car Free Vancouver is on Facebook and on Twitter @carfreeyvr. Use hashtags #CFDrive #CFKits #CFMain #CFWest when tweeting about your Car-Free neighbourhood!

Car Free Vancouver – Main Street is on Facebook and on Twitter @carfreemain (#CFMain)

Check out our YouTube Video

North Van joins the party – 250,000 Expected to play in the streets on Car-Free Vancouver Day

WHAT: Car-Free Vancouver Day
WHEN: Sunday June 20 (Father’s Day), noon to whenever
WHERE: Kitsilano, Commercial Drive, West End, Main Street and now, NORTH VAN!
WHY: To reclaim our streets for people

Car-Free Vancouver Day is a grassroots, citizen-led, 100% volunteer-organized civic celebration. Launched in 2005 with the Car-Free Commercial Drive Festival, it has grown to include FIVE large festival nodes. Each of the five community-initiated fests has a distinct neighbourhood flavour.

Kitsilano boasts a tapestry of over 25 block parties all day with street “living rooms”, dances, performers and potlucks.

Funky Main Street (between 16th and 33rd, noon to features skateboard demos, Terminal City Roller Derby, Vancouver Peoples’ Summit, and multimedia performances.

The West End (Denman Street, noon to 6) goes unplugged with Spoken Word tent, SHAG seniors’ tent, Square Dancing lessons, Capoeria, and Chamber Music.

Bohemian Commercial Drive (Venables to First Ave, noon to 6) rocks from noon to six, with street hockey, Drum Jam, Healing Garden, Tribal Harmonix Dance Stage, tons of babies and dogs, and merry mayhem abundant.

And new this year, North Vancouver will be going Car-Free from 3rd to Esplanade St on Lonsdale Ave, noon to 6pm. North Van is going car-free with a Beach theme, featuring merriment with a distinctly coastal vibe.

“Less cars means more community.” says CFVD Co-founder Matt Hern. “This is a day to visualize what an ethical and ecological city might look like. To give people a chance to reclaim their streets, hang out with their neighbours, and enjoy a great car-free day. Cities all over the world are embracing car-free streets, far beyond what we have here. Mayor Robertson just committed $25 million toward bicycle infrastructure in Vancouver, and that’s a great start to reclaiming our streets. Car Free Day is a way to celebrate the future of our city.”

Organizers strongly recommend that participants bike, walk, skate, or take transit from Fest to Fest — but DON’T DRIVE! Parking is guaranteed to be nasty. TransLink will have extra buses in service, and there will be plenty of treats, surprises, and friendly faces on the bike routes between the Fests. Most Fests feature Bike Valet Parking.

And of course, it’s all FREE: Free of charge. Free of boring corporate stuff. Free of cars.

Chris Carlsson in Vancouver!

Chris co-founded the monthly bike-ins known as Critical Mass that have spread to five continents and over 300 cities. He is director of the multimedia history project Shaping San Francisco and was one of the founders and editors of the San Francisco magazine Processed World. Carlsson has edited four books, published a novel, After the Deluge, (Full Enjoyment Books: 2004) and his most recent work is Nowtopia (AK Press: 2008).

He will be in Vancouver from June 16th – 20th as part of Car Free Vancouver Day!

Chris will be speaking about Critical Mass, pirate radio, guerrilla gardeners and the invisible revolution of everyday life that is setting the foundation to address for profound global challenges of the era, from climate change to social decay.

CFVD is hosting three events with Chris:

• Wednesday, June 16th : 7:00
  Gordon House, 1019 Broughton St.
  Co-sponsored by West End Residents Association
• Thursday, June 17th : 7:00
  Riddim and Spice, 1945 Commercial Drive
  Co-sponsored by the Work Less Party and Gateway Sux
• Saturday, June 19th : 1:00
  Mt. Pleasant Community Centre, #1 Kingsway
  Co-sponsored by Our Community Bikes and Momentum Magazine

David Suzuki endorses Car Free Day

We’re excited to share the following endorsement for our festival from noted local scientist and environmental activitist, David Suzuki:

Cities are for people.  We have been designing our cities for efficiency for cars and commerce but forgot people.  Walking, biking, roller blading, bussing, enable us to experience our surroundings and other people and to move the way our bodies evolved to move.  I hope car free days will remind us of the social, ecological and medical benefits of getting out of our cars.  David Suzuki

2009 Car Free Vancouver AGM – September 22nd

Call out for CAR FREE VANCOUVER Annual General Meeting

Tuesday September 22 – 6 pm
(International Car-Free Day)

Location :
The Junction (the park at 15th and Fraser)
The Toast Collective (648 Kingsway)

You are cordially and with a great deal of enthusiasm invited to :::

CAR FREE VANCOUVER’S AGM

We will begin with a social potluck picnic in the park (please label your food)
Followed by the business meeting in the Toast Collective (see the agenda below)
The evening will end with films, music, and socializing …

This is your opportunity to celebrate, activate and actualize the vision that has successfully brought the city on side with the CAR FREE meme.

It is our opportunity to get down to business and keep strengthening the infrastructure needed for this kind of work ::

-By attending you will automatically become a member of the Society… how wonderful!!
-You will be able to vote in new Directors for the Society, to join the team rising up to the car-free, DIY ethos. (FYI: The ‘board’ is the small group of folks who help weave all the ideas, festivals and actions into a tangible presence, which can be used to lobby government and affect systemic change.)

AGENDA
6:00 PM ****PRE MEETING POTLUCK (please bring your own plate and cutlery !)
7:00PM – Member Registration
7:15PM – Introductions and Opening Remarks
7:30PM – Report from the Board and Treasurer`s Report
7:45PM – Board Candidate Speeches followed by Membership Open Floor
8:15PM – Secret Ballot Vote by Membership
8:30PM – Vote Results and Closing Remarks

Please come…! Please come!!

Tuesday September 22

Location :
6pm – The green island with the stand of flags and the big beautiful tree at the Junction of 15th/Fraser/Kingsway
7pm – The Toast Collective 648 Kingsway

Car Free Vancouver Day is still on!

You may have noticed some news about Vancouver’s Car Free Sundays being in jeopardy.

Fear not!

The Car Free Days being referred to in those articles are the ones proposed by Andrea Reimer last year. The plan she had was for the city to take the lead on hosting a series of its own car free days over the whole summer.

The original Car Free Vancouver Day is still on! We’ve got a dedicated group of volunteers organizing it, and we have approval from the city to close Denman Street, Main Street, and Commercial Drive to traffic on Sunday, June 14th (note the date change). In addition to those three major streets, residents in Kitsilano, Dunbar, and everywhere else are encouraged to host their own car free block parties.

Keep checking back here. We’ll have more details as the fest date gets closer.

Start your own car-free day

So you want to throw a festival in your community. Great! It’s a lot of fun, you’ll meet some cool folks, build community and put on a great party. And really, we can’t emphasize this enough: it won’t be too much work if you get enough help and organize it right. For real!

The Car Free Vancouver Day organizers have put together a guide to help get you started on pulling off a great event. You can download it here.

Car Free Day Vancouver needs YOU!

Car Free Day 2009 is four months away and the various organizing committees are getting the ball rolling and looking for volunteers. If you’d like to lend a hand, check out the Get Involved page for contact details for each festival as well as a list of upcoming organizing meetings.

Stay tuned to this site for more details on the individual festivals, coming soon.