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Online Effort Pushes For Car Free Weekends In Center City

By Tim Jimenez

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Center City traffic box is a thing of the past, but there's now an online effort to make car free weekends part of the future.

The campaign is called Open Streets PHL.

Organizers, including Jake Liefer, say it's not a push for a traffic box.

"By no means are we advocating for some of the measures that were taken over the weekend," Liefer says.

But what he wants to see is the focus on fun. No cars, but people walking, running and hanging out.

So now, there is an online petition asking Mayoral candidate Jim Kenney for three such open weekends in Center City, next summer. Thousands already have signed it, including Eugene, who was part of an organized city bike ride over papal weekend.

"It's going to take a few times of experimenting to get it, but I would love to see something like that done more often," he says. "Whether it's just one or two streets in Center City or whether it's a bigger area."

And organizers want to work with businesses so it would be a boom, not a bust for them. And Eugene thinks the boom is more likely.

"Especially in Center City," he says. "More pedestrians means more business."

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