The 10th Annual Car Free Day Long Island will take place on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. The day-long celebration is sponsored by North Hempstead and is part of the town’s effort to go green and to reduce its carbon footprint.

North Hempstead has a bike rack outside of Town Hall to encourage the use of bicycle transportation.

The rack is not only for town employees to use, but it can be used by anyone needing to lock up their bike for a trip into town or to the railroad station. The rack is located near the side door of Town Hall on Andrew Street.

Additionally, new this year, the Town partnered with PedalShare to unveil a new pilot bike share program in Port Washington.

PedalShare is a bike share program on Long Island with over 200 bikes and 50 stations across the Island. As part of the program in North Hempstead, stations are located at Town Dock, Manorhaven Beach Park, and the Port Washington Long Island Rail Road Station. PedalShare maintains the bikes and the program will be offered at no cost to the Town.

Town officials hope that Car Free Day will encourage residents to consider the negative impact of single-occupancy vehicles.

Last year, North Hempstead earned an award from Car Free Day Long Island for the highest number of pledges of any town on Long Island.

This resulted in resulting in the avoidance of 423.4 miles of driving and 2 tons of CO2 emissions. In 2021 alone, nearly 2,000 Long Islanders pledged to go car-free or car-lite.

To participate in this event, all you have to do is pledge to be car free or car-light on Sept. 22 by filling out the pledge form on www.CarFreeDayLI.com. Those who take the pledge will automatically be entered for a chance to win great prizes.