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Car Free Saturday with Streets Are For People

By Kevin Bracken

2007_09_21Carfree.jpg
If you can imagine, for a moment, that Queen West has been designated a streetcars-and-pedestrians-only zone, it would not be that much different from the traffic flow in 1907, or this weekend. Join Streets Are For People this Saturday for World Carfree Day. Celebrated in over 1,500 cities around the globe, Toronto’s version is custom-tailored to our homegrown oil addiction.
This Saturday, there are two related happenings to be aware of. The first is parking meter parties along Queen West, beginning at 1:00 p.m. Never hosted one before? Here are some tips:

  1. Scout out a parking spot where you’d like to spend the afternoon
  2. Park your non-motorized “vehicle” (i.e. your bike, trike, roller-skates, dinky-car) along Queen West
  3. Pay the meter. For $1.50/hr the spot is yours! (be sure to display your parking receipt on the “dash” of your “vehicle”!)
  4. Have fun showing Toronto how much fun carfreedom will be! dance! paint! play a game! read a book! make music! make people smile!

Then at 5:00 p.m., gather in Trinity-Bellwoods Park for the Carfree Parade! Set to proceed east along Queen West, this event is a blank slate for human-powered creativity: trumpets, chariots, bicycles, giant inflatables, marching bands, costumes, or crazy people marching would certainly not be out of place for this epic annual procession. Could an event be more liberating? The parade begins at 6:00 p.m. sharp, don’t be late!
More instructions, oil-free dogma and revolutionary slogans can be found here.

Comments

  • guest

    Wouldn’t it be cheaper to garbage bag the meters and put out a few orange pylons?

  • guest

    Good idea. Horrible execution.
    Insanely busy street on the weekend + little to no organization/advertising so that drivers are informed this is going on + grey areas in current by-laws regarding parking spaces = a recipe for injuries and accidents. At best, this will make traffic WORSE along Queen West.
    Kensington Market’s Pedestrian Sundays (http://torontoist.com/2007/05/pedestrian_sund.php) are a much better way to get this point across.

  • Liam

    Gotta say I concur that is a terrible idea.
    Biases out in the open, I am a car owner, but I’m also a transit fan, I just grew up in a very, very car-centric culture (northern Ontario) and with working in Scarborough while living in Parkdale and doing a decent amount of running around for two of us, a car is something I’m reconciled to own, and I like to think that I compensate by living well in other areas (lots of recycling, transit where I can, etc).
    As do many, many, many other car owners. And this is just going to inconvenience, not do a single thing to change a mind, if it goes through as it sounds like it may. Also, while that stretch of Queen West might not strike one as having a ton of ‘essential’ services, I can already think of a few places that might result in considerably more ire-raising than your average boutique, should you need to get in immediately, not have your way blocked by a tea party. Queen West Animal Hospital for one (just having put down a very sick animal, we were frequent visitors, and if a life-sized game of Scrabble delayed me 10 seconds in getting my animal life-saving attention, I would be out for blood); the funeral home next to QWAH (’nuff said); the church bordering Trinity Bellwoods (same ballpark as the funeral home). That’s not even a single block, and I’ve named three places, let alone the apartment complex in there.
    I really think there are better ways to promote car-free lifestyles.

  • guest

    I’m moving from Queen West, but not in time to miss this year’s, unfortunately. I will miss all future “revolutions”, so I’ll have to hope that they are televised.

  • friendlyrich

    Some people are drunk on education, and they think they have solutions. For example, I heard a few ding-bats on the radio today talking about how they would “take back the streets” by putting money in a parking metre (usually designated for cars, but not in this willy nilly plane of existence, nooooo…..) and playing crow-kay (how the fuck do you spell “crokay”….i’m lazy and don’t give a shit, really) on the street instead. They said their point to doing this was to make people realize that cars are bad, and that the streets could be used for so much more.
    My question: when the fuck are the dreamers going to start doing something with their over-educated, spoiled rotten, sons and daughters of rich people lives? This sort of protest with a twist of meaninglessness is what so many tight-panted men call rebellion. Well, then. If this is rebellion, then I’m gonna take my Volks for a stroll and drive over the idiots playing CROKE-EH on the streets to prove a point. Some call it a crazy thought, I call it subversive willy nillyism. You dig?
    We need to start respecting the system we live in and fuck it from within, rather than waste our lives away day dreaming. With this sort of rebellion, we’ll get lots of conceptual art protests that result in nothing, really. For example: “let’s take back Bay Street by putting down some sod on the side of the street and calling it OURS” (willy nillyism, the Bay Street rollers walked right over your point and into the buildings they buy and sell you with)….or how about: “let’s protest the fact that Toronto paved over a creek system that existed 100 years ago” (willy nilly wigwam). Look here: I’m sad that Louis Riel is dead, that dinosaurs are in museums, and that Lanny McDonald shaved his moustache…but we move on and fight like boxers, not circus clowns.

  • Jonathan Goldsbie

    Friendly Rich? As in Friendly Rich and The Lollipop People? Is that you?

  • EricSmith

    Sorry, friendlyrich, you don’t win Crank Letter Bingo because you didn’t include the phrase “pollyanna la-la land.” Too late now that I’ve made my ruling, but enter again next week!

  • guest

    It’s was a blast. People danced in the street.
    Better than being stuck in gridlock.
    But hey, life is all about choices.