West End Car-Free Festival

Building on the success of the Car-Free Commercial Drive Festival, some good folks have now started efforts for a Car-Free West End Festival. Here’s details from their Facebook site:

“We are looking to build on the success of the Commercial Drive’s Car-Free Festival and bring it to the West End. Commercial Drive has been running its car-free festival for two years, and last year received over 50,000 people. Our vision is that the West End Festival will run concurrently to the Commercial Drive Festival that runs annually on Father’s Day. The West End Car-Free Festival will use the same template that has made Commercial Drive’s Festival such a success while adding our own community’s personality and flavour….

Our Goal. To celebrate our neighbourhood, promote locally-based businesses and artists, and party with our neighbours and friends. To imagine a community without cars, because the West End is about people, and not cars.

How? This will be a festival created by the community, for the community. In the spirit of the Commercial Drive Festival, ours will be a free festival and run entirely by volunteers.

Why? This community is worth celebrating. That is why we have decided to throw this festival: to party with our neighbours and to be grateful for the richness that we share. The West End is ours. It belongs to us -the merchants, the home-owners, the renters and the people living in the street. We share a responsibility to care for it, and we have the right to play in it.
This festival is not “anti-car”. Cars are useful machines that can be used wisely. But we are taking this one day to see what a car-free street looks like, and to appreciate how reducing our car-dependency can improve all our lives.

Join! If you want to participate or volunteer for the West End Car-Free Festival please contact us. Many helpers are needed to make this run smoothly. Please get in touch with us and join the celebration. It’s time to reclaim our streets, our neighbourhood, our city, our world!”

Also – the first planning meeting for the Festival is taking place Wednesday, January 23, 7-9pm at Gordon Neighbourhood House. They’re looking for volunteers and people to help planning, so please come out!

For more information: Margo and David – carfreewestend |at |yahoo.ca, or check out their Facebook Page.