Carfreedom!

The Sierra Club of Canada is hosting the City of Toronto's 2007 Car Free Day celebration on Yonge Street and Yonge-Dundas Square on Thursday, September 20 from 10 am to 2:00 pm.

World CarFree Day is this Saturday, September 22 in Toronto.

Come out and see how much fun carfreedom can be! Host a Parking Metre Party along Queen St West from 1 p.m., then join the Carfree Parade at 6 p.m. (5 p.m. assembly at Trinity Bellwoods, to head east).

How to host a parking metre party:
1. Scout out a parking spot where you'd like to spend the afternoon
2. Park your non-motorized "vehicle" (bike, trike, roller-skates, dinky-car etc.) along Queen West
3. Pay the meter: for $1.50 per hour the spot is yours! (Be sure to display your parking receipt on the "dash" of your "vehicle"!)
4. Have fun!

It's fun! It's legal! Bring your fellow velorutionaries!

Then, on Sunday, September 23, Bells on Bloor invites you to join their pedal powered parade.

We will ring our bells all the way from High Park to the ROM. Free bells will be distributed by Bell Captains. If I am given the honour of being a Bell Captain, my name will be Bella Lugosi. (Major Belle E. Ache has not yet confirmed my status.)

The start point is High Park at Bloor St West – the main gate to the park, at the traffic light. You can see the route map is here. The start time is 12 noon.

If you are not riding but want to support our effort, please ring a bell at one of the following locations at 12:30 p.m. when the bike parade passes:

• Christie Pits (Christie and Bloor) Admiral Bellerophon in command.
• Manning and Bloor: Major Bellini
• Brunswick and Bloor: Lieutenant Belle Epoque

Albert Koehl, founding member of Bells on Bloor, recently wrote a story for the Star titled, "A bicycle-friendly city is environment-friendly, too". Read it here.

Cycling protects our environment. So let’s protect our cyclists with more bike lanes. Fighting global warming has never been so fun.

For more information email info@bellsonbloor.ca

And, on the same day the Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA) along with the David Suzuki Foundation present the Toronto Smog Hike. Every year, 1700 people die from smog-related illnesses in Toronto.

Here are three things TEA invites you to do:
1) Join us for an exhibit of all 1700 posters. Sunday September 23, 10am to noon. At the Harbour Square Park (foot of Bay Street, beside the Ferry Terminal)

2) Walk with us! Join us for a few blocks or a few days! We leave at noon, and we'll keep hiking until we've postered 1700 lamp posts. Could take awhile....

3) Send us your message! Send us a few words about smog and we'll hand-write it on a silhouette and include it in the Smog Hike. It can be about a personal experience, a message to politicians, a fit of rage, a poem, a proposal or whatever you'd like to say.

Get all the details here.

Crossposted to Spacing