World Car Free Day, 22 September
Blog by Sophie, Meet Your Neighbours Coordinator at Sustainable St Albans
This is why we have World Car Free Day on the 22nd September each year. It is a day to raise awareness about the environmental and social impacts of using a car and looking at what the benefits could be for using your car less. It aims to enable people to experience streets free of motor traffic as well as making travel easier for those who rely on private vehicles for health and mobility reasons.
It is an interesting question: do you rely on your car, could you function without it, do you need it to get to work, to drop your children off at school or just to do your weekly shop. Around 44% of households have one car and 34% have two or more cars and about 83% of people use a private car at least once a week (Gov.uk), so the question is do we need a car, the answer for many due to location, work commitments etc is yes but then another question could we potentially use our car less and why is it important to potentially do so?
The three main benefits being seen as:
- Cleaner Air: Lower vehicle usage reduces carbon emissions and local air pollution.
- Safer Streets: Closing roads to traffic creates safer spaces for pedestrians, cyclists, and children to play
- Community spaces :the opportunity to repurpose space used by cars for community gatherings
For me, personally, I don’t drive. I tried (quite a few times!) when I was younger but it just didn’t work out for me one way or another, my close circle of friends and family think I am mad for not driving and do not understand how I can survive without one. I am lucky that I have a husband who drives, so the children and I have access to a car which we do use frequently but me personally I have just adapted to not having one.
The benefits for me…
I walk everywhere and obviously my children do as well so health wise that’s a bonus (even though we do get the moans in the wet weather!) and I would genuinely miss being outside as much as I am. The other major benefit for me is that I love to be busy but I have to be busy locally, I have to find opportunities in my local village this has meant volunteering for the primary school PTA, the local church, coffee mornings, girl guides and it has really enabled me to get to know my local community. On many of our walks, I am always bumping into someone I know, and my girls always comment that I seem to know everyone! So, yes, it helps that I am community minded anyway and I am not saying that people with cars aren’t at all (I know lots of very community minded people who drive!) but not having immediate access to leave the village when I want does keep me very local.Â
Many people ask do I feel ‘isolated’, ‘lonely’, ‘frustrated’ not being able to have that freedom?
That makes me think, yes it does sometimes but actually I am used to it now but how would I feel if I had that freedom and it was suddenly taken away which could happen for many reasons financial, health, growing older and that would I think be incredibly difficult, your world shrinks and changes, if you could suddenly not drive would you have those community links, would you know people in walking distance to see, would you know the local coffee mornings or would you become suddenly ‘isolated’.
And for me that is why I think ‘World Car Free Day’ is an important day just to think: do I need to use my car every day, could I maybe instead go for a local walk, go to the local park or knock on a neighbour’s door for a cup of tea and the children to have a play.
And this is why I am so passionate about Playing Out community street gatherings and the social benefits they can have for people of all ages. For one afternoon a month, it enables your whole street to not use a car and to keep it local, for people to get to know their neighbours and be part of their local community.
22 September is World Car Free Day… what will you do?
All around the world, towns and cities allow people to experience streets free of motor traffic as well as making travel easier for those who rely on private vehicles for health and mobility reasons. It’s a great chance to re-imagine our streets around people. So what can we do to make a difference? You can find out more about World Car Free Day and how to get involved at https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/get-involved/world-car-free-day/.
More than forty streets in St Albans, Harpenden and the villages have had community gatherings on their streets…
If you are interested in finding out more about community street gatherings here in St Albans, Harpenden and the villages you can find out all about it at https://sustainablestalbans.org/playing-out/ or contact Sophie at playingout@sustainablestalbans.org to arrange a chat. Sophie can support you to hold an annual street party or regular short gatherings – we look forward to hearing from you.