Dear Friends,

I am afraid that we have not been doing much to advance the activity of
this particular website per se over the last year or two, but that
should not be taken to mean that we have lost interest in this very
important area of transport policy and practice... rather that we have
been working on it in a variety of other fora and ways. Hopefully, all
this will become clearer once we complete an in-process revision of all
the websites and programs of The Commons of which this is one important
part.

Three ongoing programs that are trying to advance the agenda you find
here are the United Nations Car Free Days Programme at http://uncfd.org,
the Earth Car Free Day program at http://www.earthcfd.org (which by the
way is exactly one week from today), and the Car Free Day demonstration
in Fremantle, West Australia, which you will find all the needed details
at http://www.carfre.org. And while each of these programs aims at
freeing the streets of our cities for other and better uses than
hurtling masses of steel and rubber, it is the Fremantle program
concerning which I would like to solicit your ideas and suggestions
today.

In a first instance, I would like to invite you to have a look at the
site and to share with us the proposals that are being made to create
active involvement of children in the Fremantle events. Since what we
are working on here is not only a game plan for the city of Fremantle
but also something that can serve as an open, easily accessible model
for other places wishing to give this try a whack, it appears to me that
there is every reason to try to make a success of this end of things.
There is so much that can be done in this kind of context, and the more
minds we put on it, the better.

Any ideas or suggestions on this? I would like to see if our friends in
Fremantle might be convinced to propose to one or two 'groups of
children' (how to define?) the rather interesting challenge of making
something out of a bit of street space that we might turn over to them
for all or part of the forthcoming Shed Your Car Day.

My guess is that they would undertake to create some kind of playing
space, and it would be interesting to see how they might stretch their
minds and muscles to do this. Another wrinkle on this, would be to ask
them later to comment on and give some ideas for the future, building on
what they have managed to do and might maybe want to do better the next
time around.

For now, the plans are aimed at providing events for children during
that day, and while I think this is terrific, I would like to see if we
can stretch a bit beyond this and turn our kids into more active
participants and witnesses.

For which your ideas and help will be more than welcome.

With all good wishes,
 
Eric Britton 
 
Senior International Advisor
United Nations Car Free Days Program at http://www.uncfd.org
 
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