Twelve major cities introducing policies to reduce car dependence

Wed 01 March 2017 View all news

Twelve major cities around the world have, or are in the process of, introducing policies to reduce or stop car use. According to a report by Business Insider, one of the most proactive cities, Madrid, plans to ban cars from 500 acres of its city center by 2020, with urban planners redesigning 24 of the city's busiest streets for walking rather than driving.  

In late 2016, the Mayor of Madrid, Manuela Carmina said that one of the city's main streets,  the Gran Vía, will only allow access to bikes, buses, and taxis before she leaves office in May 2019. It's part of a larger effort - in common with three other cities to ban diesel cars by 2025. (News link.) 

Urban planners and policy makers around the world are proposing ways that cities can cut congestion, air pollution and CO2 emissions.

Some examples:

  • Oslo  plans to permanently ban all cars from its city center by 2019 — six years before Norway's country-wide ban would go into effect, and invest heavily in public transport. It will also replace 35 miles of roads previously dominated by cars with bike lanes.
  • Chengdu plans to have a new residential area which will make it easier to walk than drive, with streets designed so that people can walk anywhere in 15 minutes.
  • Hamburg plans to make walking and biking its dominant mode of transport. Within the next two decades, the city will reduce the number of cars by only allowing pedestrians and bikers to enter certain areas.
  • Copenhagen: over half of the city's population bikes to work every day, thanks to the city's effort to introduce pedestrian-only zones starting in the 1960s. The Danish capital now boasts more than 200 miles of bike lanes and has one of the lowest percentages of car ownership in Europe.
  • Paris plans to ban diesel cars and double the number of bike lanes.As of July 2016, all drivers with cars made before 1997 are not permitted to drive in the city center on weekdays. If they do, they will be fined, though they can drive there freely on the weekends.
  • Athens announced it will ban diesel cars from the city center by 2025 and already restricts diesel vehicles from the city center on certain days based on their plate numbers. Athens Mayor Giorgos Kaminis says his goal is to eventually remove all cars from the area in a bid to improve air quality.
  • Brussels is looking for more ways to expand its car-free zones — one proposal would turn a popular four-lane boulevard into a pedestrian-only area. In February 2016, Brussels announced that diesel cars made prior to 1998 will be banned starting in 2018.
  • Mexico City. In April 2016, the city's local government decided to prohibit a portion of cars from driving into the city center two days every work week and two Saturdays per month. It determines which cars can drive on a given day using a rotating system based on license plate numbers.
  • Vancouver has persuaded an increasing number of residents to commute by public transport. People in Vancouver took half of all trips by foot, bike, bus, or subway in 2015. This is considerably more than any US city of comparable size, including Seattle (21%) and Philadelphia (27%), according to a 2015 UN report.
  • New York City isn't planning a car ban anytime soon, it is increasing the number of pedestrian areas, along with bike share, subway, and bus options.

Meanwhile, London has introduced a wide range of policies including the introduction of a 'Toxicity Charge'  for more polluting vehicles to add to the pre-existing Congestion Charge, low emission bus corridors, mandates for cleaner taxis and has a wide range of other access and regulatory proposals in the pipeline.

For more information see the Business Insider article. 

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