Car-free Sundays in Bogota - How about more car-free parkways here in Boston?

StreetTalk !
Car-free Sundays in Bogota Colombia - How about more car-free parkways here in Boston?
Wednesday Dec. 10, 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Program includes 3 short StreetFilms on Bogotá, premere showing of LivableStreets Street Film on Mem Drive Sundays, and Special guest Renata von Tscharner from Charles River Conservancy.

@ LivableStreets office space, 100 Sidney Street, Central Square, Cambridge [ map... ]

free and open to the public, donation suggested beer/sodas provided compliments of Harpoon Brewery!

Would you like to see car free days in Boston? Did you know that a section of Memorial Drive is car free every Sunday between April and November? Do you wonder what it would take to have a car free parkway here in Boston? Did you know that over 70 miles of streets are car free every Sunday in Bogotá, Colombia thanks to their former Mayor, Enrique Peñalosa? And did you know that LivableStreets will be hosting Peñalosa in Boston in February?

Come watch StreetFilms about Bogotá, Colombia to see their street transformations and learn more about what Enrique Peñalosa did to start car free streets. Learn about advocacy efforts to get car free streets on parkways. Learn about the history of the Memorial Drive car free days, and watch LivableStreets new film about it!

This event is sponsored by LivableStreets Alliance. Click here for more information

Check out these articles from the Boston Globe about a car-free Storrow Drive:

Car-free proposal for Storrow: Plan would open west lanes to recreation on Sundays (Jan. 1, 2008)
"In a time when we all struggle with obesity, and when we all realize how important exercise is, this is a place where people can both enjoy the river and get vigorous exercise," von Tscharner said. "The time is right for that discussion." >>>

Fun on Storrow - why not? (Globe Editorial, Jan. 6, 2008)
James Jackson Storrow, prime mover behind the creation of parkland on the Boston side of the Charles River, would have been appalled that the state put his name on Storrow Drive, which slashed through the park in 1951. The city would be enhanced, and Storrow's memory honored, if one section of the highway could be given over to recreation on Sunday mornings. >>>

Recreation plan gets red light: This time, construction keeps Storrow Drive open (June 21, 2008)
Bikers and joggers hoping to enjoy a car-free Storrow Drive on Sunday mornings will have to wait. State officials say they have put on hold a proposal to close a 5-mile stretch of the riverway road to cars. The move would have opened the road for bicycling, in-line skating, and other recreational uses, similar to how Memorial Drive in Cambridge is used on Sunday mornings from April to November. >>>

This is a great article about Enrique Peñalosa:

Bogotá's urban happiness movement: A radical campaign to return streets from cars to people (GlobeAndMail, June 2007)
From living hell to living well: A radical campaign to return streets from cars to people in Colombia's largest city is now a model for the world. “A city can be friendly to people or it can be friendly to cars, but it can't be both,” says former Bogotá (Colombia) Mayor Enrique Peñalosa. "Car Free Day is just one of the ways that Mr. Peñalosa helped to transform a city once infamous for narco-terrorism, pollution and chaos into a globally lauded model of livability and urban renewal. His ideas are being adopted in cities across the developing world. They are also being championed by planners and politicians in North America, where Mr. Peñalosa has reinvigorated the debate about public space once championed by Jane Jacobs." >>>

Enrique Peñalosa, former Bogotá Mayor who implemented radical transportation change in the Colombian capital city, is coming to Boston Feb. 4-7 (a collaboration between LivableStreets Alliance and the Institute for Transportation and Development Polocy) >>>