![]() ![]() The ban will be permanent and is one of the most ambitious movements toward car-free cities in Europe due to its timeframe. ![]() Oslo, Norway’s plan will ban all cars entirely from the city center by 2019 and build more than 35 miles of new bike paths, along with mass transit improvements. Paris used alternating-day traffic bans and free access to public transportation to counter air pollution in the past, but the move toward a permanent phase out of fossil fuel cars for entirety of France represents a fundamental shift. Paris’s efforts are part of a larger goal to ban all fossil fuel cars in France by 2040 as both a long-term sustainability plan and a method of reducing smog. Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s pollution-reduction efforts including the forthcoming diesel ban, pedestrian-only Sundays once a month along the Champs-Elysees Avenue, and expansion of the city’s successful bike share program established in 2007. While not Paris’s first car-free event, it followed an announcement that all diesel vehicles will be phased out in Paris by 2024. In October 2017, Paris banned cars for an entire day in the inner city. Some European cities are seeking to ban cars from their central districts - either in total or in part - as part of climate action plans and long-range planning initiatives. Restricting Cars in City Centers Takes Hold in Europe In this post, we’ll explore some of examples of these driving regulations currently in practice and New York City’s own exploration of the congestion pricing model. Though met with controversy, the practice and more intensive measures - such as prohibiting vehicles entirely in certain city sectors - currently coexist with efforts to bring better infrastructure and pedestrian-friendly development for a more sustainable, transit-focused city. Citing that “on urban commuter expressways, peak-hour traffic congestion rises to meet maximum capacity", the Law is applied to urban roads as whole: no matter if a road is widened or additional lanes are “built in and around American cities, you can’t stop cars from jamming them up.” image by Daryan Shamkhali Congestion pricing, implemented in cities such as London and Stockholm, aims to decrease road congestion with tolls on single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs) or commercial vehicles driving on specified roadways. Transportation researcher Anthony Downs introduced his traffic equilibrium theory, the Law of Peak-Hour Expressway Congestion (Law), in a 1962 paper. ![]()
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