Vision Vancouver councillor Andrea Reimer’s dream of seeing three months of car-free Sundays in three locations may be in jeopardy. But Matt Hern, one of the founders of Car-Free Vancouver Day, told the Straight that he expects at least two car-free Sundays to take place at three sites this summer.

“What you will see for the ”˜summer spaces’ this summer is likely somewhere between two to four and two to five being able to be pulled off,” Hern said.

On March 3, city council approved a staff recommendation to consider car-free trials of less than three months. Hern, who advised city staff on its report and oversaw the first Commercial Drive Car-Free Festival in 2005, explained that the report dealt with “summer spaces”, which are separate from the neighbourhood-organized car-free festivals set for the West End, Main Street, Commercial Drive, Kitsilano, and Dunbar on June 14.

“Our festivals are all going to be good to go,” Hern said, referring to Car-Free Vancouver.

If the city’s car-free Sundays do proceed, Hern argued that community groups should be the ones putting them on.

“The city shouldn’t do them,” Hern said. “The neighbourhoods should put them on. The city should provide the support and the infrastructure.”

COPE councillor Ellen Woodsworth agrees.

“I think that the ones that have happened in the city before”¦have really come from the community,” Woodsworth told the Straight in a phone call from City Hall. “They have been groundswell up.”

Woodsworth said the city’s role should be to provide “funding and organizational support”.

Lone NPA councillor Suzanne Anton said she “would like to see more car-free days”.

“The festival atmosphere that Matt Hern has brought to Commercial Drive is fabulous,” Anton told the Straight. “Every time the streets are closed off for these individual festivals, it brings a lot of people out. There is a lot of enjoyment in the city. The challenge is to translate that into more similar kinds of days. Staff are working on that.”