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World Car Free Day, celebrated on September 22, stimulates reflection on urban mobility

Image: sergio souza on Unsplash

Cars, undeniably, were an evolution to man's way of life. Roads advanced frontiers and long distances quickly shortened. But there are also many problems that came along with the automobile market: the excessive increase in pollution, the immense concentration of cars in big cities, the expense of raw materials and the irrational traffic. It was to rethink all this that the World Car Free Day, celebrated on September 22, was created.

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In 1997, French activists decided to create World Car Free Day and chose the date of September 22 to organize the mobilization. The idea of ​​leaving the car at home as a way of advertising the less intensive use of motor vehicles and showing that there are transport alternatives that are less harmful to the environment was so successful that, as early as 2000, around 760 European cities participated in the initiative.

In Brazil, the World Car Free Day is more recent, but not so much. As of 2001, we already had our first version, which involved 11 cities: Porto Alegre, Caxias do Sul and Pelotas (RS); Piracicaba (SP); Vitória (ES); Belem (PA); Cuiabá (MT), Goiânia (GO); Belo Horizonte (MG); Joinville (SC) and São Luís (MA). In São Paulo, activities related to the date began to take place in 2003, but it was only in 2005 that the event was supported by municipal secretariats. Other organizations also started to support and give more visibility to the World Car Free Day.

Cycle activism and active mobility are the main focuses of World Car Free Day, a date that every year has events to stimulate reflection on themes such as walking (the ease or not of walking in a public space), use of the collective transport and alternatives to individual displacement. Since 2011, several cities have scheduled events throughout the month of September, which began to be informally called Mobility Month.

The objective is to stimulate reflection on the excessive use of the car and propose to people that they try, at least for one day, alternative forms of mobility, demonstrating that it is possible to move around without needing a car (even more appropriate).

Check the schedule of your city or region and participate in the events. Regardless of the commemorative agenda, adopt the World Car Free Day proposal and leave your car at home on September 22 - and whenever possible. Rethink the way you move in your daily life and promote alternative measures that could extend throughout the year.