The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.

-          Preface to The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (13 December 1935)

-           

1. Okay, here is a bit of what we are seeing thus far in these exchanges this week. One person likes Car-Free Days as he understands them and feels that this is the best model. Someone else says oh no! we have seen all that and it does not work. Then yet someone else chimes in and says something else about what is best. Think about it. These are all intelligent informed people, but each is looking at some kind of mental model about the thing in question and making their judgments on that basis. Maybe we can think of it as the six blind men and the elephant?
   
   
2. Dear Friends. Let’s take a step back and see if we think about all this with fresh eyes. Let’s think of it as a new idea.
   
   
3. Carlos F. has this good idea of at least thinking about doing something along the lines of fewer cars and more other better stuff in Bogota – on the occasion of what is being pushed in Europe as their Car Free Day (his latest good note on this is attached below). Here in a nutshell is what the sponsors at the European Commission have to say about that by way of quick background reminder:
   
   

“This year, Public Transport, Cycling and Living Streets/Greenways have been chosen as common themes for the whole of Europe. A list of other themes is also available for the other days and of course the Car Free Day on Wednesday 22nd of September has been the highlight of the whole Mobility Week!” (See http://www.22september.org/part/en/day05.html for more.)

4. So, what Carlos is suggesting is that we take a bit of time to think about what might be done in Bogota on what is rapidly growing into a World Car-Free Day. That’s all. He is not suggesting that we take all the cars off the streets, call out the militia, that we throw rocks at motor cycles, that we close down some or all of the streets. He is not even suggesting that we call it a Car-Free Day. He is just asking what might we do in his city to take advantage of this opportunity. (BTW, when I say Bogota it’s always “we” for me.)
   
   
5. It is clear (at least that’s how I see it from here) that we are not in the short time remaining going to get the city or the government into it. Okay. That’s one solid point of departure. Let’s keep thinking.
   
   
6. Step 1: Let’s not call it a Car-Free Day (yet). Rather let’s play with the idea a bit and in the wake of our collective work we can then maybe come up with a better name. Okay?
   
   
7. So suppose we think of this in a first instance in more generic value-free terms: as a city, civic event of some sort but part of which has to do with having fewer cars on the streets for at least that one festive day, which takes place as a “self-organizing system” as opposed to a more or less controlled and centrally managed bureaucratic event, which is the mindset that has largely predominated in the Car-Free Day movement over these last years. Before we go on to consider how an alternative model for Bogota of any other city might look, let’s look at a few key words that give us a feel for what a self-organizing system is all about, and how it differs from our usual CFD model.
   
   

Open system, multiple parts, self-managing, decision independence, complexity, local interactions, connectivity, feedback loops, adaptive, non-linear, chaos, emergence. In sum, a whole that is more than the sum of its parts and a process that is based on interconnected learning systems.

8. Now, it maybe that for some of you this is a nightmare scenario: who knows what will happen if all these independent decision centers begin to interact. But to my mind, we are talking about some of the fundamental building blocks of true democracy, and all the more so in societies that have many educated and responsible citizens capable of making their on decisions. (Which by the way is how you define democracy anyway.)
   
   
9. Good. With this by way of background and scene change let’s next consider what might happen in your city if (a) you liked the idea of a day with a lot fewer cars on the street; (b) were an effective communicator and networker and (c) were able to get in touch with a fair number of groups and individuals who were capable of picking up on your message and possibly participating in your open group event. Obvious candidates are the usual cycling, pedestrian and transport user groups, but the more you start pushing your thinking on this the more possible candidates you come up with.
   
   
10. Carlos suggests a good word: “Invitational”, as opposed to mandated or “enforced”. That strikes me as a step in the right direction.
    
    
11. So here we have it: our candidate and starting point for an alternative Day approach.

·         An invitational, citizen event.

·         Date to be set

·         City: Bogota? Others?

·         Basic idea: Get as many people as wish to out of their (own) cars and using other kinds of transport during that day. (this might well include an element of carpooling, sharing, etc.)

·         Networking and coordination: Old and new media. Full gamut (more to follow on this). An interactive web page is clearly going to be a key ingredient.

·         Analysis, study, “evaluation”: Needs serous thought.

 

My guess is that at this point we will get some kind of split here. On the one hand will be those who feel that the present dominant pattern is the way to go. Alternatively, there will be others of us who feel that sustainability is such a massive challenge that we must be prepared to keep on trying.

 

Does this advance things at all?

 

And if so, what next? Your turn.

 

Eric Britton

 

 

 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Carlos F. Pardo V. [mailto:cpardo@...]
Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2005 5:07 PM
To: 'María Fernanda Escallón'; 'Ricardo Montezuma'; 'Adriana Hurtado T'; jcmacias@...; diazoe@...; 'Giselle Xavier'; daggers.ton@...
Cc: 'Mike Noble'; eric.britton@...; ms@...; f.nahrada@...
Subject: [Norton AntiSpam] RE: Día sin Carro Voluntario 2005 en Bogot

 

Buenas,

 

En resumen, a todos les parece más interesante tratar de conseguir respaldo político para legalizar (o legitimar?) el día sin carro en septiembre. Creo que es una buena idea, pero también me parece que dos días sin carro al año por ley ya harían que más de uno se enloquezca y comience a decir que cómo es posible que la ciudad se desangre económicamente con ideas como esas (lo digo porque esos son los artículos que aparecen el día después de un día sin carro). Mi opción apelaba a la madurez de los ciudadanos, que tal vez iban a ser capaces de salir a montar en bicicleta por una razón más legítima que legal y porque, aunque tengan la opción de salir en el carro, simplemente opten (sin ninguna especie de obligatoriedad) a montarse en una bicicleta y ver la ciudad de otra forma. De hecho, creo que ese sería el siguiente paso para lograr la transferencia de modos que es necesaria para resolver el problema del transporte. No obstante, de pronto es un paso que no se puede dar todavía. Lo único que no creo es que la forma de hacer que la gente monte en bicicleta sea prohibiéndoles montarse en el carro. Creo que lo mejor es que haya una prohibición (como la de febrero) que los haga reflexionar, y una segunda “invitación” al año que simplemente les haga la sugerencia de montarse en la bicicleta como lo hicieron en febrero. Eso haría más probable que el siguiente mes vuelvan a coger la bicicleta sin que les obliguen o les sugieran. Pero una vez más, Bogotá tal vez no está preparada.

 

De otra parte, creo que fui un poco malinterpretado. Yo no sugería un evento desorganizado de gente disfrazada de cacatúas y gritando por las calles (por eso mi anotación de “no es un critical mass”). Tampoco estaba sugiriendo un evento de un presupuesto inmenso (de ahí mi punto sobre presupuesto). Simplemente un grupo de gente que voluntariamente se montara en bicicleta e hicieran más bulto en las ciclorrutas del que actualmente hay.

 

Finalmente, como ahora nos hemos redireccionado hacia la opción “legal” del día sin carro, estoy dispuesto a escribir artículos y comunicados de prensa para comenzar a sugerir la medida en todos los medios posibles. A dónde los mandamos? Creo que sería interesante encontrar que el mes de septiembre se encuentre plagado de artículos sobre transporte sostenible en distintas revistas del país y, mejor aún, por muchas personas de distintas organizaciones que demuestran que el tema no es de mochileros o charlatanes.

 

Gracias por sus aportes. Creo que este tipo de comunicaciones masivas son las que nos ayudarán a lograr proyectos grandes.

 

Suerte, y nos vemos en agosto.

 

Carlos F. Pardo

 

 

De: María Fernanda Escallón [mailto:mescallon@...]
Enviado el: Thursday, July 07, 2005 9:33 PM
Para: 'Carlos F. Pardo'; 'Ricardo Montezuma'; 'Adriana Hurtado T'; jcmacias@...; diazoe@...; 'Giselle Xavier'; daggers.ton@...
CC: 'Mike Noble'; eric.britton@...; ms@...; f.nahrada@...
Asunto: RE: Día sin Carro Voluntario 2005 en Bogotá

 

Carlos,

 

Gracias por su mensaje. Aunque tiene razón que Bogotá es un gran referente en estos temas y que lo que ha alcanzado con el dia sin carro es muy bueno, estoy de acuerdo con el comentario de Oscar Díaz respecto a que un dia sin carro voluntario puede desvirtuar el dia sin carro oficial que se organiza en febrero. Creo que la fuerza de estas iniciativas no sólo radica en la exitosa organización de la sociedad civil y de las ONG’s, sino en la forma como se involucra el gobierno  en la toma de decisiones y en las políticas que establece. Como ha sido claro en el caso de Bogotá, gran parte de las decisiones que se han tomado respecto a las ciclorrutas, la protección del espacio público y la ciclovía por mencionar sólo algunas, han sido parte de una estrategia de “arriba hacia abajo”, de fuerte voluntad política y no como ha sucedido en Chile o México (por ejemplo) donde la sociedad civil organizada ha tenido mucho que ver en los cambios realizados. En Bogotá la dinámica ha sido muy diferente (tal vez con excepción de Lima), pero es bueno no perder ese “espaldarazo político” que le da obligatoriedad al cumplimiento de un día que -por consulta popular- debe realizarse si o si. Se que el dia sin carro voluntario no sería competencia del dia “oficial”, pero creo que sería más interesante buscar alternativas más creativas.

 

 

María Fernanda Escallón

Coordinadora General

Desarrollo Estratégico

Fundación Ciudad Humana

Calle 71 No. 6-57 Oficina 401

Bogotá, Colombia

Teléfonos: (++57 1)3126686  Fax: 5424398

Email: mescallon@...

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Britton [mailto:eric.britton@...]
Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2005 10:53 AM
Subject: Organizing a wide-open Citizen Car-Free Day

 

Dear patient World Car-Free Days Friends,

 

I write you today with a view to seeing if we might share our thoughts on the following. If you have spent any time with this site, you will helpfully have noted that we are proponents of individual responsibility and initiative, diversity and local action -- and one of the reason why we decided more than a decade ago to call this whole business World Car-Free Days in the plural, is because it is our believe that any day of the year is a good one to have a lot fewer cars on the road and more sustainable mobility in our cities.  So whatever day you want to propose we want to make sure that we are there to help and encourage you to the bets of our means.

 

One idea that has always been especially close to my heart (see extract below from the original 1994 Car/Free Day call) is that of the self-organizing, non-bureaucratic, community-based Car-Free Day.  And as a result of a conversation with my friend and colleague Carlos Pardo who lives and works in both Bogota and Bangkok (you figure) this morning, we got to talking about the possibility of using SMS or some other organizing device for a citizen Car-Free Day.

 

This in turn brought us to the possibility of considering the possibility of harnessing some of the tools or the experience of FlashMobs for knitting together a volunteer citizen Day – and it is in this context that I would like to share a few references with you (below) and at the same time to hear what you think about this. Have you tried it in your city? Would you be interested to give it a try? Would you like us to see how we might help?

 

Here to get the juices flowing is a first draft of a task list:

 

1. We want to get in touch with a large number of people in our city and let them know that XX is going to be a Car-Free Day
2. We need to be able to point them to where to go for more information on how it works and how they can participate or support it.
3. Ideally they will let us know (a) who they are, maybe (b) something about their “category”, and hopefully (c) how they intend to act, perform in support of the Car-Free Day
4. If there are any special events these need to be made known.  (For example an end of the day concert, dance and schmooze to meet each other and celebrate the fact that we like people more than we like cars.)
5. And after it is all over, it would be great to have their feedback, views, and ideas for the next Car-Free Day

 

You will surely be able to do a lot better on this that that, but perhaps it will give you a starting point for your own thoughts and recommendations.  In addition you have just below a few first references to get you going on this, and if it strikes any chord, it will be great to hear from you on this.  (And in the meantime have a look at Kyoto Challenge; it may be that this can be useful for your city as well.)

 

With all good wishes,

 

Eric Britton

 

* * *

 

Extract from p. 18 of  “Thursday - A Breakthrough Strategy for Reducing Car Dependence in Cities”, The Commons, Toledo, Oct. 1994

What Can You Do if You Don't Happen to Be a City?

Agreeable as the idea may be, there will be many who will find themselves in situations where their city or neighborhood is simply not yet prepared to make the leap and try a Thursday project. How for example can even the most willing citizen hope to participate in such an experiment if you happen to live in the middle of Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo or any other of tens of thousands of cities where responsible intelligent people will tell you that "it is just not possible here"? (And that will, incidentally, be the first reaction in most places.)

As luck would have it you have a choice. Anyone who wishes can go out and organize their own Thursday project on their own terms. You don't have to be a city or even a small town. Thus, for example, if you are president of a company, you can get together with those who work there and ask them if they are interested in giving it a try. Or a school or a gym or a hospital. Perhaps you will decide with the members of your bridge club, church or karate group that you are all going to try to see what happens if each of you decides to spend just one day without getting into a car by yourselves alone. Or maybe just the people in your family. Or possibly just yourself -- one person alone who has decided that she or he is willing to take a fling to see what it might be like.

There will of course be no one best way to do it. Each person, group, and place is going to have to figure out the rules on their own. In some cases, car pooling and shared taxis may be considered acceptable, in others only non-motorized or public transport. Each grouping will decide its own rules and live its own experience. But the point that I wish to stress is that this can be an individual decision and does not have to be something that comes out of some government agency or very large collections of institutions and interests. This is, quite blatantly, not the sort of approach that will appeal to docile, fatalistic or passive citizens. These are concepts that are gong to be picked up only by more thoughtful, individualistic, self-confident individuals and groups. And it is my belief that there are in our societies many more of these kinds of people than most might think.

One of the challenges behind each Thursday project will be to find imaginative ways for all those who decide to participate not only to have their own unique experiences on that day, but also to get together later so that what they have done and learned individually during that fated day can somehow be summed up and inspected from a community or group wide perspective. This suggests a combination of something like individual log books wherein each participant or group can record the detail of their particular experiences, and then some way of adding these experiences up in order to draw some larger lessons from the whole. I have no specific suggestions at this point how the detail of this will best be handled, but I am confident that once the problem has been clearly posed, there will be people and groups who know what to do next. Good organization and careful planning will help, and so too could sensible use of state of the art electronic communications.

* * *

What is a flash mob:

(Source: http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid40_gci916705,00.html)

 

A flash mob is a group of strangers organized by electronic media, who gather together in a public place, behave in a pre-determined (and often silly) manner for a pre-determined amount of time, and quickly disperse. A successful flash mob event depends on the element of surprise. Participants, called mobsters, share news about the time and place for an upcoming event through postings on blogs, chain e-mail messages, and SMS text messages, but no one knows exactly what they will be expected to do until they show up and are given a "script". Flash mobs can arguably be called public performance art, although participants say it's fun just to "freak people out" and shake up the status quo without breaking the law. Flash mob events have gotten media attention in New York, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Glasgow, and London. Various scripts have called for participants to act like robots, improvise barnyard sounds, or impersonate a group of tourists from Maryland.

One of the first flash mobs to get press coverage occurred in Manhattan in July 2003, where more than 250 strangers quickly changed their plans to meet at Grand Central Station (because news of the planned event leaked out and spoiled the element of surprise) and met instead at the Hyatt Hotel. At a pre-determined time, the mobsters gathered on the balcony overlooking the hotel's lobby. On cue, they burst into 15 seconds of loud, unexplained applause and left. Without the instantaneous nature of the communications tools used to organize the crowd, participants speculated that this particular flash mob event most likely would have been cancelled instead of moved to a new location. According to Howard Rheingold, author of "The Virtual Community" and "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution," flash mobs are not just a passing fad during the summer of 2003, but are a demonstration of the "ability for groups of people to organize collective action in the face-to-face world, in ways that they were unable to do before the combination of the Internet and mobile telephones made it possible."

>> Find white papers, products and vendors related to flash mob.

Read more about it:
>>	The BBC has an article "Technology meets the mob."
>>	Michele Norris talks to Mike Epstein, a software engineer who runs a personal photo log on the Web, about the "Mob Project."
>>	Howard Rheingold calls smart mobs "the next social revolution."

 

 

De: Carlos F. Pardo [mailto:cpardo@...]
Enviado el: Miércoles, 06 de Julio de 2005 05:30 a.m.
Para: 'Ricardo Montezuma'; 'María Fernanda Escallón'; 'Adriana Hurtado T'; jcmacias@...; diazoe@...; 'Giselle Xavier'; daggers.ton@...
CC: 'Mike Noble'; eric.britton@...; ms@...; f.nahrada@...
Asunto: Día sin Carro Voluntario 2005 en Bogotá

 

(This message will be written in Spanish as it is most people’s native tongue…however, feel free to comment in English as replies)

 

Estimados amigos,

 

Este correo es para proponerles una idea que surgió en estos días y que he oído a algunos hablar de ella de una forma u otra. Dado que Bogotá es una de las ciudades mejor conocidas como estandarte del día sin carro, creo que sería posible y relevante realizar un día sin carro voluntario entre todos los ciudadanos. El presupuesto básico es que esperamos que los bogotanos hayan aprendido de los anteriores alcaldes sobre transporte sostenible y cultura ciudadana como para esperar de ellos una respuesta positiva a esta propuesta, sin tener que obligarlos a hacer nada.

 

La actividad consiste en invitar a todos los ciudadanos a no utilizar su carro, pero de manera voluntaria y sin ningún tipo de restricciones por parte de la alcaldía o de la policía. Cada uno está voluntariamente dejando su carro para caminar, montar en TransMilenio o bicicleta y llegar a su trabajo durante el 22 de septiembre (u otro día?) de este año. Algunas puntualizaciones:

 

- Medios de difusión: principalmente electrónicos (SMS, páginas web, emails bonitos – no un forward desordenado- y otras herramientas descritas abajo), y también nosotros en bicicleta montando por Bogotá con algún aviso que invite a la gente a participar de ese día.

 

- Presupuesto: Creo que a estas alturas del año y tan cerca del evento el presupuesto no debe ser muy alto. Sugiero que realicemos esta iniciativa esperando que haya una respuesta masiva de los ciudadanos sin tanto escándalo por nuestra parte. No creo que tengamos que imprimir carteles ni pasacalles ni gastar plata en spots de radio ni nada de eso. Tal vez free press podría ayudar, me ofrezco para escribir algo, y si ustedes tiene contactos pues bienvenidos.

 

- Actores potenciales para colaborar con la iniciativa: se puede invitar a empresas que den incentivos a sus empleados por llegar ese día en bicicleta, profesores de educación física que puedan irse con algunos estudiantes hasta el colegio en bicicleta, entre otros. Ah, y la Secretaría de Tránsito ayudaría? Yo creo que si, no? Por lo menos repartiendo cascos y cintas, no? Aunque no se puede convertir en algo completamente institucional.

 

- Aclaración: Esto no es un critical mass ride! No queremos gente atropellada ni encarcelada… es importante anotar que queremos que la gente use la ciclorruta y toda la infraestructura que hay para caminar y montar en bicicleta. La idea es que, en un día completamente normal como cualquier otro, la gente se dé cuenta que pueden llegar a su oficina sin problema.

 

- Nosotros: Hasta ahora mi lista de instituciones es la siguiente (sin pedir permiso a algunos):

-          World Car free Days (confirmado, hablé con Eric Britton hoy)

-          SUTP LAC (por mi parte sí, hay que esperar a Manfred)

-          SUSTRAN LAC (por mi parte sí , hay que esperar a Giselle)

-          PPQ (esperamos respuesta)

-          Movilization (Ton Daggers, esperamos respuesta)

 

Claramente, estas son ideas iniciales. Espero sus reacciones durante estos próximos días para seguir discutiendo. Espero sus reacciones sobre cualquier aspecto.

 

Gracias y hablamos,

 

Carlos F. Pardo

Project Coordinator

GTZ Sustainable Urban Transport Project (SUTP)

 

From: Eric Britton [mailto:eric.britton@...]
Sent: 06 July, 2005 4:57 PM
Subject: Citizen (or Critical Mass) (or VFM) Car/Free Day for Bogota, Sept 2005 ???

 

Gents,

 

Here is the idea. 

 

1. Backdrop: World Car-Free Days Consortium at http://WorldCarFreeDay.com.  And our collaboration with the first (and second, and . . ) Bogota Car/Free Day starting in 2000 (some background on that here http://www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/general/bogota-sum.htm)
2. Got started in a conversation this morning with my excellent friend and colleague Carlos Pardo who spends his time working on matters of transportation, environment and quality of life between Bogota and Bangkok (you figure). The idea is to explore the possibility of organizing some sort of voluntary, citizen, non-governmental Car/Free Day this year in Bogota, perhaps on 22 Sept or thereabouts.
3. One obvious instrument for making this work would be an interactive web site (as we have done on many occasions in the past to support this sort of thing).  This can link a variety of volunteer organizations, groups and associations that share these objectives and may be interested in getting involved
4. Another – bearing in mind that mobile telephone penetration in Bogota is extensive – is to use SMS, and why not, building on your fine Virtual Flash Mob experience (as per http://www.openleader.com/index.php/VirtualFlashMobs/Infrastructure, etc.)

 

I would love to see this happen – with the understanding of course that we get it right.  We need some striking new models of Car/Free Day organization and this could be a great one.  I want to take this to the Car/Free Day group as a whole, but it will be more interesting and more solid if we build our thoughts on this together.

 

Your thoughts?

 

Eric Britton

 

The Commons Open Society Sustainability Initiative: Seeking out and supporting new sustainability concepts for business, entrepreneurs, activists, community groups, and government; a thorn in the side of hesitant administrators and politicians; and through our joint efforts, energy and personal choices, placing them and ourselves firmly on the path to a more sustainable and more just society.