CAR FREE VANCOUVER

In 2005 Carmen and I founded the Commercial Drive Car-Free Festival. Working with a brilliant pack of organizers and volunteers the event  blew up with 25 000 people converging for an afternoon of music, dancing, politics and general good times.

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In 2006 the fest went off again, this time drawing 50 000 people and making even more explicit a radical politics of ethical sustainability and social ecology, as well as opposition to the evil Gateway Project. In 2007 the Drive Fest expanded to 2 days with Fests in June and July.

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So then we took that momentum and created CAR FREE VANCOUVER DAY. In 2008 three more neighbourhoods – Main, Kits and the West End joined the Drive to put on car-free community festivals on the same day at the same time. Each neighbourhood fest has its own flavour and style, but together began to form a real Car-Free Vancouver Day. Now CFVD is a beloved annual event welcoming a quarter million folks out into to the streets to rock out and call for a different kind of city.

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The CFV Days are huge fun, organized horizontally, done totally cheap and DIY, infused with a real radical political character and everything is free.  I no longer direct them, just attend, but thankfully they continue to grow and evolve with wonderful crew of organizers.

If you want to start a fest or get involved in one of the many sprouting up around the city, please have a look at our How-To-Start-Your-Own-Car-Free-Day toolkit.