Events

Towards Carfree Cities VI

September 20-24, 2006 BogotÃ¡, Colombiahttp://www.worldcarfree.net/conference/

By Aaron Naparstek

9:00 AM EDT on September 20, 2006

September 20-24, 2006
BogotÃ¡, Colombia
http://www.worldcarfree.net/conference/

From September 20-24, 2006, the Towards Carfree Cities conference will be held in the Americas for the first time. Hosted by Fundacion Ciudad Humana in Bogota, Colombia, the conference promises inspiring speakers and interactive workshops. On-site visits will allow participants to witness all the remarkable changes put in place in Bogota over the past years, changes which are now spreading throughout Latin America and abroad.

In the words of former Bogota mayor Enrique Penalosa (one of the keynote speakers): “We were able to change the priority from a city for cars which is what had been built for the last 80 years, to what I believe is much more a city for people […] We made sidewalks. We widened footpaths in many cases, even taking away space from car roads. We built, or rebuilt, about more than a thousand parks. We built some fantastic schools and nurseries and libraries. And we built about 350 kilometres of bike paths, and we created maybe what is today the world’s best bus system.”

Aaron Naparstek

Aaron Naparstek is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparstek's journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. He was also one of the original cast members of the "War on Cars" podcast. You can find more of his work on his website.

Events