In 2005 Matt, Carmen and Mark founded the Commercial Drive Car-Free Festival. Working with a brilliant crew of organizers and volunteers the event absolutely blew up with 25 000 people converging for an afternoon of music, dancing, politics and general good times on the Drive.

In 2006 the Festival, under the auspices of the new East Van Celebration Society went off again, this time drawing 50 000 people and making even more explicit a radical politics of ethical sustainability and social ecology, as well as opposition to the evil Gateway Project. See our new site www.gatewaysucks.org.

This year, the Drive Fest is expanding to 3 days (!!) with Fests in June, July and August. Keep an eye on www.commercialdrivefestival.org for more info as it comes out.

As well the plans are expanding further as we aim towards a Car- Free Vancouver Day. The East Van Cel is taking on 5 -7 interns groups, who will be closely involved in organizing the Drive Fests while learning how to run their own festivals. In 2008 these groups will return to their neighbourhoods to run their own car-free days and the cycle will start again. Soon we will have the city covered in a quilt of neighbourhood festivals and we’ll just keep going from there. Keep an eye open for our soon-to-be-available How-To-Start-Your-Own-Car-Free-Day toolkit. It’ll be online soon.

If you want to start a fest or get involved in ours, please do write me at matt(at)mightymatthern.com.