Advocates say decommodified housing and free transit needed to fight climate emergency | Ricochet
Montreal’s car traffic came to a standstill. It was predictable —
hundreds of thousands of people were expected to descend on the downtown
that day, conditions that aren’t exactly ripe for the free flow of
cars.
It was a sort of poetic justice, considering that the demonstration
on Sept. 27 was in favour of dramatic action on climate change, a
phenomenon caused in large part by the personal-use car. That poetic
justice was only amplified when the City of Montreal announced, in the
leadup to the demonstration, that it would be making all public
transportation free for the day.
“We need to make transportation a human right, and make housing a human right”
It was, above all, a symbolic measure, meant to demonstrate the
city’s commitment to fighting climate change and its support for the
strikers, as well as offset some of the transport-related havoc
engendered by 500,000 people in the street. The metro trains were packed
that day, often filled with sign-carrying youth on their way to or from
the demonstration.