Over at the SHIFT list, they’re looking for volunteers to help organize a car free day:

This email is to gauge interest in a committee, working group, task force, or what have you with the purpose of promoting car-free projects in Portland.

Particular tasks might include (with the first two items probably being priorities):

– Throwing another Car Free Day street fair in September, or maybe something more block-partyish. There was a group working on this that threw great parties for two years running, but new blood is needed if it’s going to happen again this year.

– Promoting and enabling ever more street closures. The permit process for this is not impossible, but pretty daunting and involves a fair amount of effort, logistics, and diplomacy, and could be much more common with a strong source of encouragement and advice. Possible groups we might approach for this: Last Thurs on Alberta; neighborhood street fairs big and small; Peacock Lane (imagine a car-free night to view their xmas lights); individuals and businesses who want to have block parties.

– Taking over parking spots for parks, turning streets into living rooms, etc.

– Going after that elusive world record for number of simultaneous block parties in one city

– Advocating for a future Car Free Day where all of Portland is free from private car traffic for a day

– General advocacy and promoting carfreeness. I also have some unformed ideas about taking on transit issues, but that’s a whole different kettle of fish.

Is this the sort of thing anyone else is itching to do? If so, drop me a line. If enough people are interested, we could try to meet up and talk about it sometime the week after next — maybe the 24th or 25th (Monday or Tuesday), in the evening, so also let me know your availability.

Feel free to pass this on to one and all.

Thanks,
Elly

If you’re interested, e-mail webmaster@portlandtransport.com and I’ll pass it on to Elly.