Can you imagine a world without traffic jams,
potholes or auto accidents? Activists can at the Arcata,
Calif.-based Alliance for a Paving Moratorium. Since 1990, the
group has been urging people to get out of their air-polluting
vehicles and find their feet again. The alliance’s 40-page,
newsprint quarterly, Auto-Free Times, keeps the public up to speed
on current anti-auto campaigns. Stories include a man who designed
a live-in bike and the growing trend of pedi-cabs in cities. Mock
ads, such as one for the “Apocalypse” car, relay the real facts of
car-caused cancer, respiratory and heart disease that cost
Americans over $103 billion a year. Yet each day, says the
alliance, the United States spends nearly $200 million building
roads. Founder Jan Lundberg, who started the movement as an
offshoot of the nonprofit Fossil Fuels Policy Action League, says
he realizes that not everyone can be auto-free, especially in rural
areas. But he urges everyone to do what they can – to bike, walk,
take a train, be aware.
For more information,
contact the Alliance for a Paving Moratorium, P.O. Box 4347,
Arcata, CA 95518 (707/826-7775) or e-mail to
alliance@tidepool.com.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Getting off the road to ruin.
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