You got your block party for a few hours on a Saturday. Once-a-year events have the air of the city fathers patting us all on the heads, saying, вЂњThere, there. In fact, in this context, one might conclude that city-sponsored events like вЂњCar-Free Earth DayвЂќ are actually counterproductiveВ to the goal of ridding our public space of the noise, violence, hostility, pollution and sheer geometric problem of cars. ItвЂ™s not exactly the Spanish Steps, but people donвЂ™t need anything fancy beyond a safe, car-free place to gather.

Look at Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn - the local neighborhood group took away cars and now people gather and meet their neighbors on a cement median. And residents are using those streets, even without jugglers or face painting. Now, can we remove the car storage, please? ДЄll across the city, there are great open streets that limit cars half the day. Just give New Yorkers car-free public space and they will use it. We donвЂ™t need circuses - we need car reduction. We donвЂ™t need programming - we need permanents. Instead, we got a sort-of car-free event on about a dozen streets (most of which were already car-light open streets anyway), with all sorts of unnecessary programming.

We already knewВ the cityвЂ™s вЂњCar-Free Earth DayвЂќ event on Saturday would be underwhelming and a paltry substitute for what this city needs: a real effort to periodically eliminate car use and show New Yorkers how much better their lives would be if all the cars disappeared for a day (or a week or a month вЂ¦), and we could all enjoy safe streets, efficient bus service and grand public spaces.

Midtown madness 2 trucks