Taipei Fine Arts Museum

The event activities of the 2012 Greater Taipei International Car-Free Day are officially launched in the press conference held on July 20th. The main theme for this year’s car-free day is “It’s Not My Carbon” and in conjunction, a new series of activities is also introduced, including “The Taipei Car-Free Literature Award” and “Finding Mr. & Mrs. Petty Bourgeoisie” to encourage the public to make small changes to the mobility in their daily lives and experience the benefits of a low carbon lifestyle and green transportation. During the press conference, new generation pop idol Eva Ai and trend lifestyle blogger Issa were invited to share their car-free lifestyle experiences. The Commissioner of the Taipei City Department of Transportation Lin Tse-Ying and other prestigious guests then jointly announced the official launch of the event activities of the 2012 Greater Taipei International Car-Free Day.
This year is the 11th year that Taipei City has held the International Car-Free Day event. After years of promotion, the concept of the car-free day appeal is no longer just a narrow “no driving” slogan, but also about how carbon reduction can be implemented through our actual daily living habits in terms of food, clothing, housing and transportation. Low carbon lifestyle is not just a slogan, but a hope to lead everyone to make a small step of participation that will become a great leap for a carbon-free city. The main theme for this year’s Car-Free Day is “It’s Not My Carbon”, focusing on the concept of low-carbon “transportation” of the city; it must be deeply rooted in everyone’s living “attitude”, penetrating the living “habits” of each person. Even if just one more person each day is willing to exercise a low-carbon lifestyle, our city will become better from your efforts, one that created living “value” through enhancing green transportation.
This year’s Car-Free Day event also includes “The Taipei Car-Free Literature Award”, with “My Green Commuting Life” and “Taipei’s Back Alleys Roaming Path” as the two main themes. The public is invited to share their green transportation experience from all different perspectives in life, putting their heart-touching and interesting stories related to catching the Bus, MRT or riding green transportation, into writing, and uploading it to the Award website to enter the competition. At the same time, pop idol Eva Ai and trend lifestyle blogger Issa will also be sharing their car-free lifestyle experiences on the Car-Free Day website. The Department of Transportation also shared a short story of a former member of the Taipei City Council, Lee Ren-Ren, who, after retirement, remains committed to local services, and has discovered that taking public transportation in Taipei City is very convenient: the City Government provides citizens over the age of 65 with the benefit of 60 times of free travel per month and now takes advantage of public transport to engage in voter services work. The Department expresses that through each person’s different perspectives on their experiences of car-free living; it can indirectly affect and change the lives of everyone in the City to sharing the same car-free living attitude.
This year’s event also incorporated a current popular phrase: Mr. & Mrs. Petty Bourgeoisie, in the activity “Finding Mr. & Mrs. Petty Bourgeoisie” started on August 1st, which seeks EasyCard users that have accumulated the most mileage on buses or MRT, or the most trips on YouBike. The purpose is to tell the public that through just a simple change in the use of (green) transportation, you can save a lot of money.
To encourage the public to make use of the comfortable and convenient public transport services and experience the friendly and safe green transportation environment of Taipei City, on September 22nd, the day of the International Car-Free Day, the Taipei City Government will invite the public to use green transportation to gather at the City Hall Square in acknowledgment of the Car-Free Day together. To tie into 2012’s plan to build 30 new locations for the public bike rental system (YouBike), on this day, a YouBike treasure hunt activity will be held as well exciting activities, including: “the bicycle alphabet”, unplugged stage performances, green transportation exhibition and eco-friendly experience areas. Commissioner Lin of the Taipei City Department of Transportation expresses that in addition to inviting citizens to come and acknowledge the 2012 Greater Taipei International Car-Free Day, it is also hoped that everyone can take action in supporting the planned green transportation and make an effort for the sustainable development of Taipei City.
For more details on the activities, please visit the 2012 Greater Taipei International Car-Free Day official website: www.2012taipeicarfreeday.com.tw(Chinese)