Car-Free Day!

In my policy-solution speech, I addressed the issue of public transportation and how it wasn’t being advertised enough. After doing some research, I found that there is an event that occurs on September 22 in Washington D.C and 1,500 cities and in 40 different countries. This event is called car-free day. Citizens are taking pledges to ride their bikes, trains, buses, or any other form of public transportation rather than driving their cars on that day. It is supposed to promote the use of public transportation and get cars off of the road. They stated that they feel it will be better for traffic congestion, better for the environment, and a lesser demand for gasoline.

This opportunity is open for anyone to involve in as long as you just sign a pledge. Participators range from students to senior citizens. All they need to do is go car-free for that day! This could be considered a group and individual action because the individual has to take initiative to participate in the activity as a whole.

I definitely think this is an effective method of “advertising” public transportation. It also shows that people care about making the change; saving the environment, lowering the demand of gasoline, and reducing traffic congestion. The only thing I would change is to try to make this more known about in places in the U.S. other than Washington D.C. It seems like a really great way to promote public transportation so they should share their idea! It will be persuasive to the audience because not only will other people see these acts, but government officials will as well and they will notice the people acting out and possibly take these actions into account when they view the bill coming that’s asking for a 30% decrease in public transportation funding.