It’s one of the largest summer events on Vancouver’s calendar.
Car Free Day is taking place for the 11th straight year this weekend in four locations across the city. It’s an event put on by more than 500 volunteers, drawing hundreds of thousands out of their cars and on to some of Vancouver’s most vibrant streets.
But it’s also an event that receives very little financial support from the city. Over half goes into paying various city fees.
“Policing the event, providing the traffic authority to reroute traffic, the engineering costs to put up temporary road closure signs. These are all legitimate services…and we don’t complain about that aspect of it,” says Matthew Carrico, the chairman of the Car Free Vancouver Society Board.
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“It’s a tight budget. This year all four festivals will cost $80,000 to run, and about $45,000 will be our bill from the city.”
He says the city should provide the same status to their event as they do for the Celebration of Light, Remembrance Day ceremony, and other events that qualify for “civic status”. It would allow them to pay musicians, expand the festival to other streets, and lower the cost for vendors.
“The city should start to look at broadening the scope. To cut it off at parades and not include community street festivals is very arbitrary.”
In 2013, the city designated the Pride, Vaisakhi and Chinatown Spring Festival celebrations for civic status. Carrico says they’ve held discussions with the city about extending the status to Car Free Day, but nothing has come to fruition yet.
“Car Free Day can’t afford for this to stall for a decade. We’ve been mentioned as someone who would qualify if these regulations get changed. Everyone is supportive, but we need some movement.”
– With files from Nadia Stewart
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