Demonstration to celebrate the community and question car use

This Friday, 4 April, between 12pm and 1:30pm, Campaign for a Better City will reconfigure three Lambton Quay car parks to create a vibrant community space and invite passers-by to come and interact in this fun, creative and colourful environment.

CBC Spokesperson, Alan Whiting explained the purpose of the ‘demonstration’: “Despite out café culture, Wellington too often treats the street as a little more than a place to dump the car whilst we head off shopping. Car-bound streets are sterile, uninviting spaces. If we can reduce car dependency, remove on-street parking and reclaim that space, we can create a better city for both locals and tourists.”

“People expect as of right the common and easy use of their car. This unquestioned assumption is damaging our communities, environment and ourselves. This demonstration aims to question our vehicular use and transport choices and provides a positive example of a potential effect of reduced vehicular use. We want people to be ‘Car Conscious’. Conscious of the effects that overuse of their cars brings.”

The car parks to be re-used are at the junction of Lambton Quay and Johnston Street. Wellington City Council has given permission for this event to be held. The participants will be paying for the car parking spaces. According to WCC’s web-site1, there are 31, 500 carparks in the CBD including 5,500 on-street parks.

1 http://www.wcc.govt.nz/news/projects/waterfront/keyissues/parking.html

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