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QUOTATION OF THE MONTH |
"'Rush Hour' is six
hours of not rushing anywhere."
This is an acknowledgement of the
authors of the new Annual Urban
Mobility Report, released at Texas
A&M University. More information
found under Reports.
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| WORLD
CARFREE NETWORK ANNOUNCEMENTS |
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TOWARDS
CARFREE CITIES 2011 IN MEXICO
The tenth Towards
Carfree Cities Conference was
held in Guadalajara, Mexico, from 5
to 9
September 2011. Reports are that it
was a wonderful and inspiring
conference, with many great
discussions. Further reports and
downloadable presentations will be
available soon.
Read
more
CARFREE
ART ON CARBUSTERS
See the collection of carfree art in
an exhibition titled Velocypedia,
held in Prague, Czech Republic, and
now available for view on the
Carbusters website. Exhibition
curated by former WCN employee Lenka
Kukurova as well as Milan
Mikulastik.
Read
more
BULLETIN
DEVELOPMENT @ WORLD CARFREE
MONTHLY NEWS
Thank you to those who responded to
the last request. We are still able
to make use of more volunteers who
can donate their time. There are
numerous ways the bulletin can still
be developed - we can upgrade the
bulletin website, add new language
versions, provide outreach and look
for more subscribers or apply for
funding. If you have tech smarts,
enjoy doing media outreach, you can
translate into foreign languages,
collect news stories, or you want to
donate part of your inheritance ...
we want to hear from you! Please get
in touch at
bulletin@worldcarfree.net. |
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| GENERAL
ANNOUNCEMENTS |
FOR OUR
HABITAT!
On October 21-23 an
international campaign, organized by
the new international ecological
movement "Habitat" and other
ecological and social movements,
will take place. We appeal to other
movements from different countries
to join us. We ask everyone to join
the campaign "For our habitat!" and
organize pickets, meetings, spread
flyers, organize other protest
actions in Your countries on these
days! If you would like to join,
please contact:
zaprirodu.ru@gmail.com.
See the Facebook
page
U.S.
EPA ASSISTANCE TO COMMUNITIES
Smart Growth Implementation
Assistance and Building Blocks for
Sustainable Communities - these
are two calls for letters of
interest that have been issued by
the Environnmental Protection
Agency for communities in the USA
that want to foster economic
growth, protect the environment
and develop plans for development.
Deadline is October 28
Read
more
MOVE:ME
move:me – mobility film festival for
Munich. Green City is organising a
film festival for mobility related
themes. The date will be the 19th to
the 21th of October and the main
topic is a view to the mobility of
tomorrow. Included is a festival
with live music. Venue: Gabriel
Filmtheater, Dachauer Straße
16, München, Germany 5,-
€ per show. Friday free entry.
Read
more
SAFECYCLE
TO START UP
SAFECYCLE is a new project, with EU
funding, set to address cycling
accidents and offer e-safety and ICT
applications. For more information,
contact Ronald
Jorna.
Read
more
BASIC
BIKE PARTS
One Street has launched One
Street Components in response to the
rapid extinction of basic bicycle
parts. This became necessary to
their Social Bike Business program,
that provides durable transportation
bikes to impoverished people in
communities around the world. Currently
both bike parts donations (such as
derailleurs or chains) or financial
contributions are welcome.
Read
more
CONFERENCE
ON PEAK OIL
ASPO-USA conference for 2011 will
take place on November 2-5 in
Washington DC. This is the annual
conference for the Study of Peak
Oil, and participants from many
fields, including both
environmentalists as well as
petroleum engineers.
Read
more
TRANSPORT
WORKS
A new website has been launched in
the UK - called Transport works -
which is intended to provide the
general public as well as the press
and specialists with arguments and
information dedicated to supporting
and investing in public transport.
Read
more
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| ACTION |
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STOP THE
AMAZON HIGHWAY!
Call on Bolivian president Evo
Morales to cancel all plans for the
construction of the Amazon highway
through indiginous territory in
Bolivia, which hurts the people of
TIPNIS and also will endanger the
ways of life of the forest and its
people.
Due to heavy protest at the plans,
Morales has suspended construction
of the highway, although it is
feared that plans are still on the
table and will resume again once
protests subside.
There has been a fair level of
brutality by police forces. In
response, the defense minister
resigned, and Morales has called for
an investigation into the incident.
You may sign an online Avaaz petition,
found here.
For more background information you
may read this
in English.
You may read more about TIPNIS
in Spanish as well as this letter
to Evo Morales in Spanish.
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| IN THE NEWS
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Chen
Guangbiao is one of the richest
Chinese businessmen. In Nanking, he
staged a media event where he had
one of his luxary cars smashed to
pieces, as a symbolic gesture of
taking action against the pollution
of Chinese cities by cars. One of
his suggestions is to raise the
price of fuel by 50%. He has also
called on people to use their cars
as little as possible.
Read
more
Cebu City in Philippines implemented
carfree day in the downtown.
Proposals sent to city hall consist
of ideas to transform road use for
pedestrian, cycling and
non-pollutting forms of transport.
There is also a proposal being
considered to have pedestrian-only
streets every Sunday.
Read
more.
Milan, Italy implemented a carfree
Sunday as an answer to high levels
of pollution. This measure kicks in
every time 50 micrograms of
particulates per cubic metre of air
is measured over 12 days.
Read
more
New York city received a new park -
up above the street level, along an
unused train corridor. The newest
addition - called High
Line - to public space in
NYC, immediately became very
popular. The planners of the
elevated aerial park worked ten
years to get it ready.
Read
more
New public bike sharing systems are
continuing to gain in popularity
around the world. A system in
Melbourne, Victoria is up and
running with 600 bikes, and Chicago,
Illinois recently announced plans to
make 3,000 bicycles available for
public rent by next summer. New York
City is currently taking suggestions
from the public via its Web site
about placement of rental stations
for its upcoming bike-share system.
Read more: Melbourne,
Chicago, NYC
According to a recent ranking of 17
European cities on air quality,
Berlin came out on top. Milan and
Rome rank at the bottom of the list.
The survey was conducted by
"Sootfree for the Climate".
Read
more
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| REPORTS |
2011
URBAN MOBILITY REPORT
The Texas Transportation Institute
at Texas A&M University has
released its annual mobility report,
which looks at traffic and
congestion throughout the USA. It
has found, for instance, that the
cost of congestion is $100 billion
in total. Traffic problems are also
tied to the economy, and are set to
get worse in the future.
The full report may be downloaded here.
See also their website and press
release.
Read
more
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| MEDIA &
NETWORKING |
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easitNETWORK
FOR GREEN TRAVEL
Based in the southern UK,
easitNETWORK is designed to support
and encourage businesses in their
local area to adopt alternative
transport behaviours to reduce
pollution, ease congestion and
increase satisfaction within its
staff base. The group now represents
over 50 businesses employing over
180,000 staff across 3 counties. It
has just won the Queen's Enterprise
Award for Sustainable Development.
You may write to easitNETWORK at
info@easit.org.uk or call on 01306
886677.
Read
more
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