Paris: A Day Without Cars Event

Paris: A Day Without Cars Event
by Teresita Blanco

This September 27th, Paris will ban cars off the street for a day. The city will be open only to pedestrians and bikers. For a day, Parisian streets will be filled with different noises. Visitors will hear a city without the noise pollution of cars. This event runs parallel with a United Nations Climate Change Conference.

It also goes along well with the European Mobility Week. This event shows how a car free city could function. The 1st thought the 7th; and the 10th and 11th section of Paris will participate in this event.  Important tourist destinations like the Bastille and the Eiffel Tower will also participate.  Other cities in the world plan to participate in this event along with Paris.




These cities are Montreal, Bogota, Mexico and Ho Chi Minh City. The degree of the Car ban varies from city to city. Cities like London and Los Angeles will be paying attention to this Parisian experiment. Like Paris, these cities have horrible traffic problems. They have been thinking of giving up certain sections of the city to pedestrians and cyclists.

Other Countries have been thinking of creating car free cities. For example, city planners from Abu Dhabi and China have been planning to make a car free city from scratch. Changing the current infrastructure might cause some complications, but a car free city is not impossible to imagine. After all, cars are only a century old.