The Village Project has celebrated Car Free Day since 2004. Car Free Day is an international event on September 22nd to celebrate life without automobiles. In the past, The Village Project has encouraged people to take the bus to work and the bike to go shopping, hosted demonstrations projects on how to put the bike on the bus, collected letters in support of light rail, and collected pledges to go car free.

The Village Project maintains a separate website specific to Car Free Day in the Triangle, www.gocarfree.com.

History of Car Free Day Events

2008

We ran a letter writing campaign to support the extension of the light rail to Carrboro. We sent the letters to the long range planners at the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro MPO as public input into the Long Range Transportation Plan 2035. We collected over 500 letters. In February 2009, the long range transportation plan with the light rail option was approved by the MPO. However, the light rail is not planned to extend to Carrboro. It will connect Durham with UNC-Chapel Hill and express buses will connect Carrboro with the light rail.

2007

This year, we worked in collaboration with Walkable Hillsborough to support the Amtrak station in Hillsborough. Art Mines of Walkable Hillsborough had collected letters and signatures of community members in support of the Amtrak station. The train used to stop in Hillsborough until the 1950s. The Car Free Day event included a rally on Saturday morning as the Amtrak train passed through the town. In addition, The Village Project got support from the elected officials in the municipalities in Orange County in support of the train station.See the meeting minutes of these bodies: Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Hillsborough, Orange County.

2006

We collected pledges from community members who said they would get around without using their car. We had a whole bunch of prizes for people for taking the pledge.One of the prizes for taking the pledge was a bike donated by the Clean Machine!We held an event on the Weaver Street Lawn with other non-profits who supported the car free vision and brought the Village Project models out for everyone to see. We also had a bus on hand to demonstrate how to load a bike on the bus and how to use the handicap ramp. Chris Williams from the Recyclery hosted a bike maintenance workshop in the Clean Machine parking lot.

2005

We collected pledges from over 1,700 people who would not use their car on Car Free Day. We also had an event on the Weaver Street Lawn to celebrate the day!

2004

First annual Car Free Day celebration in Carrboro! We hosted a pledge campaign for people to commit to leave their car at home. Over 1,700 people too the pledge! We hosted an event on the Weaver Street Market lawn. Carrboro and Chapel Hill supported the event and there was a lot of community participation.