Wait, before you descend on a nearby dealership, September 22 isn’t a day to get a free car, it’s a day to encourage human beings to leave their cars at home and walk, cycle, skateboard, scooter or ride horseback to get around their day. For those with long commutes, public transportation is the next best thing.
Car Free Day is a worldwide phenomenon. It was conceptualized in the 1970s, says Wikipedia, but was popularized in the 1990s by Eric Britton at the Accessible Cities Conference in Toledo, Spain. Iceland took up the call, as did Britain, France, cities in the Netherlands and, in 2000, it became a European initiative. Now it is observed the world over.
Since 2000, Bogotá, Colombia has held the world’s largest car-free weekday to preserve the environment and “to reflect on the use of public transport.” Some cities, like Jakarta or Tehran, have car free days once a week, but most countries in the world hold it once a year.
