[TFDA] Car Free Day 2006 is today

Jennifer Rogers jfrogers at gmail.com
Fri Sep 22 10:36:58 EDT 2006


Today is International Car Free Day! You can celebrate this day by going car
free or car-lite today. There will be a celebration with prizes and
information on the Weaver Street lawn in Carrboro tonight from 5:30 - 7:30.
The prizes will be given out to people who have taken the Car Free Day
pledge online at http://www.gocarfree.com. Other information and a free bike
repair clinic will be available this Sunday at that Carrboro Music Festival.


The goal of Car Free day is to demonstrate that it is possible, fun, and
healthy get around without using cars. Hope to see you walking, biking,
taking the bus or carpooling today and other days too.





Carrboro's Car Free Day Press Release:

Carrboro and Chapel Hill to Celebrate Third Annual Car Free Day, September
22


On Friday, September 22, residents of Carrboro and Chapel Hill will for the
third straight year join millions of others around the world in celebrating
World Car Free Day, leaving their cars at home and using other means of
transportation instead.

Residents of Orange County who formally pledge to go Car Free or at least
Car Lite (reduced car use) for September 22 will be entered into a drawing
for prizes that include Amtrak tickets to Washington, DC & New York, a new
bicycle, gift certificates for Squid's, Spanky's or 411 West, Weaver Street
Market, and more.  Anyone can pledge on-line at www.gocarfree.com; pledge
forms that can be mailed will also be available in the Chapel Hill News and
Chapel Hill Herald over the next three weeks.

Prizes will be drawn at a Car Free Day celebration to be held on the lawn of
Weaver Street Market from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm on Friday, September 22.
Celebrants
will find information about public transportation, local biking and walking
opportunities, and how to create communities that are less dependent on
cars.  The Village Project will show their designs and models for
transit-oriented, walkable communities on the lawn, and Chapel Hill Transit
will demonstrate how to load bikes and wheelchairs onto buses at the Fitch
Lumber parking lot (309 North Greensboro St.).

Additional activities will take place at the Carrboro Music Festival the
afternoon of Sunday, September 24.  The ReCYCLEry will show their new Blue
Urban Bikes and will have a free bike tune-up clinic in the parking lot of
the The Clean Machine (104 West Main St.) from 2 to 4 pm.  Volunteers will
also be on-hand at the downtown shuttle dropoff (Town Hall) to help Festival
goers figure out how they can replace decrease car trips and increase
walking, biking, carpooling, telecommmuting, and bus use.

Car Free Day 2006 is presented by Students United for a Responsible Global
Environment (SURGE), the ReCYCLEry, and The Village Project, a local
non-profit that promotes walkable communities.  Additional event sponsors
include the Community Action Network (CAN), The Clean Machine, Open Eye
Café, Chapel Hill Transit, the Town of Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill Restaurant
Group, and Weaver Street Market.

The goal of Car Free day is to demonstrate that it is possible, fun, and
healthy get around without using cars.  "As our fare-free local transit
system improves and the network of bikeways and sidewalks grows, getting
around without driving is becoming easier.  Rising gas prices and the
dangers of climate change have also increased incentives to find
alternatives to driving," says Car Free Day coordinator Sarah Bruce.
Each of the past two years, more than 1,000 people in our area pledged to go
Car Free or Car Lite on September 22.  Thousands more throughout the
Triangle have also taken the Triangle Transit Authority's Smart Commute
Challenge (*www.SmartCommuteChallenge.org<http://www.smartcommutechallenge.org/>
*), August 15 through September 30, demonstrating that they can get to work
easily, comfortably and cheaply using public transit, carpools, and other
automobile alternatives.


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