We started 2017 with a “new streets resolution”: in addition to furthering our programme of Open Streets Day, we began to focus on low-carbon transport.
- Our first major milestone for the year was Open Streets City Centre. Perfect weather and a huge number of collaborators conspired to create an extraordinary outing in January.
- January also marked the start or our AtoB Challenge. This kicked off with a seven-day Travel Diaries experiment, in which volunteers kept a record of how they travelled.
- In February, we hosted our first Talking Streets walk of the year. 10 “car-free CBD” enthusiasts joined us as we explored Longmarket Street.
- Our second policy brief, Stuck in my car: how to drive less and not die trying, also came out in February. Authored by Gerhard Hitge, it offered practical tips for making the switch to low-carbon transport.
- March saw the next in our Talking Streets series, an exploration of a section of Victoria Road in Woodstock. This was a precursor to arguably our biggest moment of the year. More on that in a bit ...
- In April, we returned to Mitchells Plain for another Open Streets Day, this time on Eisleben Road.
- We also explored Maitland for Talking Streets. This allowed us to investigate the obstacles in the way of better-integrated public transport nodes, and included 30 people.
- During this period, we were fortunate to take part in the Taking Streets Seriously symposium hosted by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory.
- In May, our Street Minds group got together to discuss what transit-oriented development (TOD) means for Cape Town.
- Following on from that, Talking Streets took to the Claremont CBD to unpack what TOD could mean for street design.
- And we celebrated our wonderful volunteers at the Youngblood Gallery in Bree Street!
- The second half of our year kicked off with a Twitter chat we co-hosted with the Nairobi-based UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign. We discussed how Open Streets benefit African cities.
- In July, we launched our Open Streets Toolkit, a tool aimed at people who want to host their own Open Streets Days.
- The AtoB Challenge kicked into high gear with the #Bike2Train Challenge. We invited train users to take part in a six-week challenge where they would cycle to and from the station at least twice a week.
- We also released a video on the Open Streets movement that went viral on Facebook.
- Our next policy brief came out in August. This one, authored by our chairperson, Rory Williams, looked at theories of change and the resistance of many to cycling.
- It was also the month of our AGM. Take a look at the report we gave to attendees.
- In September, the #Bike2Train Challenge moved to Fish Hoek, where we had great success. []
- Then, in October, we hosted our biggest Open Streets Day to date. A near-5km stretch of Main Road went car-free between the Grand Parade and Groote Schuur Hospital. Thousands joined in, including the mayor of Cape Town, Patricia de Lille.
- Later that month, we went international, taking part in Placemaking Week in Amsterdam.
- In November, following our Open Streets Main Road success, Talking Streets dissected two of the primary thoroughfares in Woodstock: Albert Road and Main Road.
- We also hosted our year-end celebration and released our video on what TOD means for Cape Town.
And now it’s December, and we can formally introduce our latest initiative to you: Street Lab is a community of citizens who are coming together to help foster freer, happier, more socially cohesive movement around Cape Town. Street Lab members will be helping to move towards these goals by contributing knowledge (through once monthly, short, online surveys), helping each other change their personal transport habits, as well as getting involved in other initiatives where they feel there is a good fit for them.
We hope you will join us in 2018, when we celebrate our five-year anniversary!
