Transportation - Car Free Zone

Carfree Zones vs Carfree Days

By Lela Gary
Air Pollution Coalition of Ontario
www.carfreetimes.com - 09.02.03

It is time to make permanent changes in our infrastructure with carfree zones, if we are to eliminate air, noise, and visual pollution that have drastically compromised our health. If any progress to improve our quality of life is to be made at the local level, it will be done only by creating a people-friendly urban environment.

Stop this one-day a year party, the so-called carfree day, which has accomplished nothing more than being just that. It has been blatantly counter-productive and totally ineffective in US and Canadian cities, by encouraging tokenism and impeding progress towards a sustainable infrastructure. Our automobile-accommodating politicians have been only too eager to play this futile game and placate the naïve and wistful into thinking they are making environmental progress when no progress actually occurs. Carfree day has been a political excuse for hypocrisy and duplicitous excuse for taking no action. Consider the debilitating smog and gridlock in our cities. The social and economic benefits of reduced traffic and air pollution have been virtually ignored.

Politicians in European cities and around the world celebrate carfree days, but they also have auto-free zones, demonstrating an innovative and progressive vision. In contrast, the North American skewed perception of politicians and the powerful auto and oil industry lobbyists who have presented the automobile as the pivotal mode of transportation for decades, does not promise gradual progress. Only a permanent and bold change has encouraging possibilities.

It is time for the public to take action by planning carfree zones in their area and demanding implementation through political channels. We have been reduced to viewing endless rows of cars, poisonous exhaust fumes, and excessive noise as necessary components of a livable city. They are not. In fact, they are destructive, as they have dehumanized our streets and communities. The emphasis on solely economic development has warped our priorities and values at the expense of public concerns and deteriorated infrastructure. It is a socially and economically balanced environment that creates livable and civilized cities.