As you are aware, development has brought significant problems as well as advantages. With economic growth have come increasing pollution, traffic congestion, and injuries and deaths from road crashes. Here in Kathmandu, automobiles require an inordinate amount of road space for the number of trips they account for; they pollute the air; they make it dangerous for people to move about by foot and bicycle; and they require enormous amounts of money and space to accommodate.​

 

Every year on 22 September, people around the world celebrate World Carfree Day. World Carfree Day is an annual reminder of the folly of creating car-based transport systems and of the many advantages that would accrue if we lessened our dependence on cars and motorbikes and instead created vastly better conditions for walking, cycling, and public transport.​

 

World Carfree Day has an interesting history. During the fuel crisis of 1973, people began discussing how to discourage car use and promote more efficient and environmentally-friendly means of transport. The first carfree days were organized in 1994 in Bath, UK, La Rochelle, France, and Reykjavik, Iceland. The United Kingdom was the first country to organize a nationwide carfree day campaign, in 1997. In 2000, the European Commission began to celebrate Car Free Day as a European Initiative, with activities now often lasting all week.​Carfree Day celebrations illustrate how much better life would be in cities if it were safe and convenient to move about by foot, bicycle, and public transit; if there were ample places to play and socialize outdoors; if we had parks and playgrounds instead of car parking; if people no longer wasted time and money stuck in traffic, breathed filthy, or ran a high risk of being injured or killed in road crashes. All that, and we could have cooler cities with less flooding, as well as vastly more affordable housing, if we replaced car parking with trees, parks, and other better uses. For this we must first acknowledge the central role of the automobile in worsening life in our cities.​

 

We would all like to see our beloved city become far more livable. For this our public spaces need to be multi-functional and adaptable. We must reduce the use of the automobile and improve the situation for active transport (walking and cycling) as well as public transit.​

 

This World Car Free Day, Placemaking Nepal, Digo Bikas Institute, Cycle City Network Nepal, Nepal Cycle Society, Utopia Kathmandu and Vriksha Foundation are jointly organizing a PARK(ing) Day Event in Indrachowk on 24th September, 2022 from 4pm to 7pm, as a part of our ongoing campaign for more livable cities.​In this one-day event we will convert a metered parking space in Indrachowk into a temporary public place and create mini recreational areas to play or simply relax and foster social interaction. The day is intended to encourage creative placemaking, and raise awareness about the importance of walkable, livable, and healthy communities.​

 

The mission of PARK(ing) Day is to call attention to the need for more urban open spaces, start a discussion and advocate for more places for people, not cars, to generate critical debate around how public space is created and allocated, and to improve the quality of urban human habitat. This we believe can be a critical first step towards making our historic core areas more community oriented. We then intend to set up our next conversations on larger topics such as pedestrianization, carbon neutrality, green mobility and well-being.​We believe that we could have vastly better cities: less congestion, cleaner air, fewer and less deadly crashes, more parks, and a better response to the climate crisis. But to do so, we have to end our deadly and destructive obsession with the automobile.​

 

Join us to re-imagine the use of metered on-street parking space into a temporary public place for social interaction and in working to ensure that the life we imagine one day a year could be our life every day: a healthier, happier life that would be good for us, our children, our future generations and our planet.

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