A Day Without Cars

Today is one of my favorites in Cochabamba, “Pedestrian Day”. On this Sunday (repeated once each year) thee are no cars on the streets of this city of 700,000. No giant green Ford Explorers. No white 1991 Toyota station wagon taxis. No “trufi” minibuses imported from Korea (with the Korean lettering still on them as proof). No red, white and value painted Micros (that look like small re-painted US school buses).

No vehicles except for bikes, bikes in abundance, and families out on foot for the afternoon. Ice cream anyone?

Imagine. Imagine if my old US stomping grounds, San Francisco, did this for a day. Imagine flying on two wheels from the foot of Market Street up through the Haight, onward through Golden Gate Park and then to the Pacific Ocean, all without seeing a car.

Imagine. Imagine biking all the way from the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge to the upper west side in Manhattan with no honking or traffic. Imagine riding from downtown LA to Santa Monica without cars. Okay, not even I can imagine that.

Here is something really special that Bolivia has to offer to the rest of the world, a message. One day a year, just one day, say No Cars! It really isn’t quite so hard as you think and, truly, it is amazing to see (especially when it is isn’t accomplished because someone blocked the roads as a protest).

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A note to our regular readers: I haven’t been on a Blog strike this week. I have been on a wicked writing deadline for a report we are wrapping up – on how international financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank influence countries’ budget policies. This is some of the more wonky work that we do at The Democracy Center. I’ll post a link when it is published. I also don’t think I have anything to say sufficient to distract people’s attention from the American meltdown in New Orleans. Meanwhile, I am going to be in the US for a week starting Monday and I’ll post something of note from there.