SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Most major cities now have their own versions of open streets events that temporarily transform streets into car-free freeways for the day. Some of these have gotten quite expansive: Each Sunday, Bogóta famously closes about 80 miles of streets. But Paris is hoping to best everyone next month by closing a large, contained portion of its urban core to all cars for a day.
La Journeé sans Voiture will be Sunday, September 27 from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm, limiting cars from a substantial area that includes much of the city’s center, around landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, and two major parks. (And, yes, of course, certain exceptions will be made for emergencies.)
Paris may be onto something here--NYC can be at its loveliest after a large snowfall stops all traffic. The concept could also be generalized to other frenetic activities in modern civilization, such as "No TV Day" or "Day Without Social Media."
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 31 2015, @04:05PM
They comically define "one day" as seven hours in the afternoon and "day" as a weekend day. Not exactly monday morning rush hour.
Locally we have a nearby hippie car street to walkway conversion that is only alive because of student bars. They allow truck traffic after bar time till breakfast time or so and lots of trucks part right outside the banned area, so Paris will be OK.
There are obvious scaling problems. In a hippie city we have enough students to keep ONE road to sidewalk conversion running... But you can't turn the whole city into that, all the time, there just isn't enough demand. It actively repels all businesses other than student bars and dive bars so good luck with that.