Protest Christmas market in front of Gaia building

“Visit our Christmas market and let WUR know that it’s time to uphold its own values!” reads the flyer of the New Mobility Wageningen protest group. Last Friday, the group organised a Christmas market in the car park in front of the Gaia building to draw attention to the infrastructure for cars on the campus.

The protest group also set up its own table; not with Christmas goodies to sell, but with flyers and maps showing how they would prefer the campus to be designed. The spearheads of their campaign are the widening of Mansholtlaan and the planned car park for eight hundred cars at Born-Oost. “The University gives too much space to cars,” says Jacco Bontekoe, one of the organisers of the Christmas market. “They are stuck in old patterns. We think WUR is being untrue to its own values by pouring even more asphalt.”

The students first took the stage last summer (they later dubbed themselvesthe New Mobility Wageningen protest group), when they created a makeshift study area in the car park to draw attention to the use of cars at WUR. They also handed out a survey which was completed by nearly 600 people. The majority of the respondents agreed that the campus did not need even more asphalt and cars.

Playful

The aim of this Christmas market was to ‘foster awareness of how much space cars take up’ with a playful protest action. The protest group set up the market stalls in the car park and the visitors did the rest. There was a hot soup stall, a boy played Christmas songs on a trombone, homemade food was sold, and there were rumours that a complete choir was on its way. Visitors were asked – very discretely – to make a small contribution to cover the costs of the Christmas market.

“A Christmas market is a nicer way to use public space than a car park,” says Eline Floor Houwen, one of the organisers. “We want to draw attention to our protest group and would love to hear ideas about what else we can do to achieve our aims.” Visitors could also enter their contact details in a form if they wanted to join the initiative, and they have already recruited new members.

Talks

The discussion about the accessibility of the campus has been going on for some time. “But we do not want to bring only negative news about WUR,” Houwen adds. “For example, we think it’s good that the proposed road through Binnenveld is not going ahead. We will be holding talks with mobility people at WUR soon when we plan to hand over a manifesto that we are currently writing.”

Also read:

Petition for no cars handed to WUR board

Park and petition from mobility protest group

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