We welcome new partners and cherish our network of friends and allies. Being a CCA ally means that your organization is sympathetic to our mission - please read the Carfree Manifesto - and you are open to cooperation and being a part of our network. You can receive our monthly newsletter and will be first in line to be invited to attend our conferences or join us on projects. There is no membership fee.
Please fill out this simple form to add yourself as an ally.
Build Back Better Cities Campaign
Carfree Cities Academy - Webinar Series
Carfree Cities Academy -
Towards Safe, Inclusive, and Healthy Cities
We are pleased to offer a regular webinar series throughout all of 2023.
Carfree Cities Academy: Towards Safe, Inclusive, and Healthy Cities.
Practical Advice for Urban Changemakers
This is an open and accessible webinar series designed with the CCA and ISTEP network of allies in mind, and open to anyone who is interested. Events take place nearly every month and are free of charge. Every event is announced and contains a registration link via Eventbrite. We use the Zoom platform. Check the calendar below.
The Carfree Cities Academy is a co-production of CCA and ISTEP. To learn more about both organizations, please scroll down.
To receive updates and event announcments, sign up to Carfree Cities News
Just add your name and email to the form below.
The Webinar Series
This is an exciting webinar series where many inspirational personalities from the world of liveable streets and carfree cities come together to discuss and showcase fresh ideas and best examples.
We have developed three distinct webinar formats, each of which are described below. This allows us to offer a flexible approach to learning and sharing - in some cases following the traditional speaker/audience format, while elsewhere providing a 'commons' for discussion.
The following are some of the topics that we are planning to explore in the webinar series:
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Street Design and Transformation
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Public Space
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15 Minute City
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Child-friendly and Youth-friendly Cities
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Pedestrian Concerns
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Cycling issues
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Public transportation
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Awareness raising and campaigning
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Tactical urbanism, parklets, DIY greening projects
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Health issues connected to transport and urban planning
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Equity and inclusiveness: cities for all
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Governance and engagement with decision makers
A. Global Dialogue
This is the webinar format that allows the global CCA and ISTEP networks to come together for discussion on a variety of topics. This usually involves small group discussion (breakout rooms) and is flexible and informal in structure. It is important to us to provide a discussion platform that allows for active participation of our entire community.
B. Learning Webinar
In this type of webinar we are treated to world class speakers, individuals who were specially selected to privide keen insights into a given topic. The webinars include a presentation and are then followed by discussion and Q&A.
C. Technical Assistance
In this special webinar format we select a particular location - a city, an issue, and supportive organizations working hard to bring about meaningful change and improvements. During the course of the webinar we have the opportunity to take a deep dive into the particular story of the chosen city and to meet the protagonists who are champions of a local cause. These webinars include carefully selected external experts who are on hand to enrich the discussion with usable ideas and possible strategies for the case at hand.
WEBINAR SCHEDULE 2023
Please sign up to our Carfree News Email List to stay informed about the schedule. While this page will be regularly updated, announcements of new webinar events will be made via the mailing list.
Coming up next:
Previous webinars:
February 14 - #1 Learning Webinar. "Street Design and Transformation" with Marianne Vanderschuren.
You get what you build! When planners and designers build to accommodate the car, we get more cars. We need to remind those in charge that transport does not equal the car (or motorbike) and make explicit what people need to have a positive environment for walking, cycling, and taking public transit.
March 21 - #2 Global Dialogue. "Kickstart a revolution! Practical Advice and Examples for Local Interventions.
While the goal of carfree cities is ambitious, we can make changes quickly at the community level that show people the beauty of dramatically reducing cars in cities. Different cities around the world carry out activities to celebrate the joy of moving and socializing in carfree streets; you can do similar activities in your city. Includes mini presentations from Rotterdam, Istanbul, Dhaka, Kathmandu, and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
April 17 - #3 Global Dialogue. "Learning from Bangladesh. Practical Actions to Promote Carfree Cities"
Bangladesh is home to some of the most active members of CCA. Despite very low modal share from cars, the streets of the densely populated Bangladeshi cities are jampacked with cars. But activists are fighting back with events such as carfree days and mobile playgrounds, with internships and multi-day workshops on carfree cities, and with regular op-eds and more.
May 18 - #4 Technical Assistance. Spotlight on Pune: Pushing the Boundaries for Carfree Cities.
Our colleagues in Pune are eager to create a carfree urban core, but are facing many challenges. CCA partner ISTEP has taken the lead with this session to determine what actions are most likely to result in positive change.
June 22 - #5 Learning Webinar. "Maximum Gains, Minimum Harm. How to transform mobility and mindsets."
John Whitelegg wrote a wonderful book called Mobility - A New Urban Design and Transport Planning Philosophy For a Sustainable Future. In his book, Whitelegg explains how the intense focus on mobility—the more the better—is destroying our cities, our health, our environment and our economies. In this webinar Whitelegg lays out different possibilities for vastly improving our cities.
August 17 - #6 Learning Webinar. "Healthier Cities, Better Lives: Making a Case for Carfree Cities" with Meelan Thondoo.
Dr. Thondoo is a medical anthropologist and environmental epidemiologist working in the global health arena. Widespread car use comes with lots of negative externalities, not least of which is our health: air pollution, road crashes, and a reduction in physical activity, all leading to NCDs. Performing Health Impact Assessments can underscore the link between reducing cars in cities and improving our health.
September 19 - #7 Learning Webinar. "Behaviour Change for Carfree Cities" with Jack Windle and Hanna McCarthy.
Do you like to app? Better Points UK promotes an app that rewards people for moving around their city without a car or motorbike. There are other such apps available, and they have been demonstrated to create behaviour change when reinforced by rewards (such as discounts at popular restaurants/cafes/shops/etc.).
November 16 - #8 Learning Webinar. "Urban design holds the key to counter car culture - A discussion with experts from around the globe." Presentations by Pooja Tanna, Shail Shrestha, Justin Hyatt, and Andrew Wheeldon.
Our guest host of this webinar was Alan Vera, of Universidad Técnica de Oruro (Bolivia). Different cities have very different rates of car use, because the love of cars isn’t something intrinsic; it’s created through advertising and reinforced through urban design that makes travel by car the most comfortable and convenient. Just as urban design can promote car culture, so it can counter it, as different cities around the world show.
December 20 - #9 Learning Webinar. Park it right. With Shreya Gadepalli.
Cars spend roughly 95% of the time parked. Thus the single most effective way to reduce car use is to address the often nearly unlimited supply of free car parking. Getting pricing right can greatly reduce the need to provide car parking and can promote better transport modes by discouraging car use.
About CCA
The Carfree Cities Alliance (CCA) is an international network of individuals and organizations who believe that cities could be vastly better if we were to focus on the needs of people and nature rather than on the needs of motorized vehicles. CCA seeks to greatly reduce reliance on the automobile in existing cities and to provide a blueprint for more sustainable new cities. For more about CCA, please visit our All About the Alliance page.
About ISTEP
The International Sustainable Transportation Engagement Program (I-STEP) is a project of Texas State University’s Public Administration program and is designed to link partners from around the world to sustainable transportation policies to help create safer, more livable cities. The I-STEP approach focuses on building partnerships between sustainable transportation leaders from around the world with local communities. Past projects have focused on neighborhood connectivity improvements in both the Netherlands and Romania. Tony Hull, an Active Transportation Consultant with over two decades of experience, acts as a coordinating professional expert on the projects. For more about ISTEP, please visit the ISTEP website.
We are happy to hear from you. Come visit us downtown@carfreealliance.org.
Original graphic composition by Ahmed Tarek for CCA