World Car-Free Day in Tbilisi Announced

Tbilisi plans to participate in a World Car-Free day campaign on September 22.

Georgian community group ‘Guli Tbilisisatvis’ (Heart for Tbilisi) has announced its plan to organize a Car-Free day in the capital of Georgia, and has invited citizens to join the initiative by leaving their vehicles at home and walking or using public transport throughout the day.

Heart for Tbilisi addresses the environmental concerns that the city of Tbilisi is facing today, with the level of air pollution rate at three times higher than the actual norm.

The community group quotes data provided by the International Energy Agency (IEA) according to which Tbilisi is on the list of most polluted cities in the world, having the highest death rate caused by air pollution, a result of the frequent and common use of old vehicles in the city and within the country as a whole.

“Let’s see what our city looks like without air-pollution and noise! Tbilisi is not a city of cars, it’s our city,” stated the organizers of Car-Free day.

The Car-Free day is to be held under the aegis of European Mobility Week, the Europe-wide awareness-raising campaign on sustainable urban mobility, the objective of which is to achieve a positive behavioural change towards smarter, cleaner and more intelligent urban mobility.

Participation in citizen-led initiatives at the local level during the week of 16-22 September represents the highlight of the campaign. European Mobility Week is managed by the European Commission – Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport.

GEORGIA TODAY will provide more details (comments from City Hall, details of road closures, if any, and timings) on this story online. www.georgiatoday.ge

Nino Gugunishvili