BARCELONA, Spain — The California Air Resources Board announced last week that the state will ban the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles in 2035 in order to combat climate change by encouraging the transition to vehicles that do not rely on fossil fuels. Months earlier, the European Union made a similar announcement, effectively ending sales of new internal combustion engine vehicles across the 27-nation bloc of 448 million Europeans, starting the same year.
But in Europe, it represents just one step in an ongoing transportation revolution that aims to simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and noise pollution, while increasing urban livability, including implementing “15-minute city” designs. , where daily necessities are located just steps away from the homes.
“We want to see a massive transformation. We want fewer cars,” Gareth MacNaughton, innovation director of the Urban Mobility Initiative at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, which works with governments to accelerate transportation transformation, told Yahoo News. He added that just convincing drivers Switching to electric cars is not enough, pointing out that cities allocate huge spaces for cars, from streets and garages to parking spaces. “If everyone switched from cars to electric cars today, they would still occupy the same amount of space.”
Across the continent, urban centers are banning cars from certain parts of cities and imposing new fees. In Paris, which has car-free Sundays, only newer, less-polluting diesel and petrol cars can travel to “low-emission zones” around the city; By 2030, only electricity or hydrogen will be able to enter the French capital at all. In Norway, where 78% of new cars are electric, Oslo has eliminated most street parking spaces in the heart of the city. The medieval Belgian city of Ghent limits vehicles in the city center by offering a free shuttle from low-priced parking lots in its surroundings. Drivers heading into London during business hours must pay a congestion fee of $17 per day and an additional entrance fee of $15 just to enter “ultra-low emission zones”; In some parts of the city, cars will soon be banned completely.
“It is easier to decarbonize cities when it comes to transport, because they are densely populated, distances tend to be smaller, and public transport networks tend to be more developed,” says Barbara Stoll, director of the Clean Cities Campaign, a London-based coalition. From grassroots groups, NGOs and environmental organizations, to Yahoo News. “It’s easier to find alternatives to polluting means, such as the car, of getting around. That’s why cities are a very good place to start this transport revolution.” The Clean Cities Campaign, working closely with EU governments, seeks to see zero-emission transport take over cities. By 2030, reports will be issued that evaluate cities based on how well they are performing.
City planners in Europe are increasingly retrofitting neighborhoods to restrict cars — while encouraging “active mobility,” such as walking, cycling and using mass transit, McNaughton said. A carrot-and-stick approach is best, he said, adding that sticks include “reducing access to city centres, taking away parking spaces, and imposing fees and penalties”. The islands include providing cheap or free transportation tickets for workers and students, as well as attractive paths and urban parks.
“Building alternatives to car use, such as bike networks, public transport and easy access to shared cars, is also crucial,” added urban planner Bart Klaassen, a senior project leader at Amsterdam-based sustainable planning firm Bora Urbanism. Most Dutch planners are now rethinking city design to largely downplay the importance of cars, Klassen said.
A neighborhood in Amsterdam has become car-free, and in the Dutch city of Utrecht, a former industrial area, Merwede, is being renovated to accommodate 12,000 people in a car-free zone, one of the largest in Europe, spanning 60 acres. . Plans for the area include a market hall, bike lanes, shops, restaurants, an abundance of green space and car-sharing centres. The goal is to “create an area where most daily necessities are close by and accessible by walking or biking” in 10 minutes or less, said Klassen, whose firm is involved in the design.
One of the most ambitious projects in Europe is now underway in Barcelona, Spain. And throughout the city, there are lush green corridors to help silence sound, clean the air, and cool pockets of urban heat. The so-called mega-blocks – 3-block residential areas, markets, restaurants and shops – limit access to most vehicles and are filled with playgrounds, parks and seating areas. Six large apartment complexes have already been constructed, and a mobility plan approved in 2015 calls for 500 more. Salvador Rueda, a former Barcelona city councilor and president of the Urban and Regional Environment Foundation, who invented the concept of large residential blocks, said that if the plan is completed, it will turn “practically 75% of the streets into pedestrian streets.” If the project stays on track, he said, it will translate into “freeing 2,000 streets from the car” by 2030, while requiring only a 15% reduction in overall traffic.
The World Health Organization studied the air quality around one of these huge blocks surrounding Barcelona’s Sant Antoni Market, and found a 25% reduction in levels of harmful nitrogen dioxide and a 17% reduction in particulate matter.
“We want to change the current uses of public space with the Superblock project,” Rueda said. “We want the city for the citizens, not for the cars.”
“There are plans to build large apartment complexes in Valencia as well,” said Justin Hyatt, strategies and campaigns coordinator at the Car-Free Cities Alliance. He moved to that Spanish city because of its Greenway, a six-mile-long strip of coastline for pedestrians and bicycles created after local residents objected to a highway project planned there. He added that the Car-Free Cities Alliance, an international non-profit organization working with citizens, planners and governments around the world, provides advice and strategic training to those planning other projects across Europe, from initiatives proposed in Berlin that would limit up to Up to 80% of traffic to cities. The core of German capital has similar models in countries from the Czech Republic to Bosnia and Herzegovina. “Private cars are very inefficient in terms of transporting people, especially in cities, so we need a better solution,” he said. He added that in addition to the emissions released by cars, there are car accidents that lead to the death of an average of 3,000 people per day around the world, according to the World Health Organization.
Although urban Europeans are not as dependent on cars as Americans, Stoll would like to see their car-buying attitudes evolve faster. “Personal car ownership is something we would like to see decline in Europe,” she said, adding that car sharing was becoming an increasingly viable option. “It is not beneficial for everyone to have their own cars, because in 95% of cases, the cars are parked and not in use. So they take up a lot of public space. If we can reduce private car ownership, make all these cars electric and zero-emission, and share These cars can automatically reallocate space — and reallocating space is the best way to get people out of their cars.”
The move to go car-free in European cities is refreshing for Joel Crawford, a former social worker in California who wrote the book Car-Free Cities 22 years ago. “It is now a widespread movement (in Europe), supported by many levels of government, although it is moving rather slowly,” he said from his home in the Netherlands, where he walks and bikes everywhere. He noted that many cities across Western Europe now prohibit cars from accessing their historic districts, creating a street-level vibrancy rarely seen in the United States.
“The average American will say, ‘If you take my car away from me, I’ll die.’ He noted that for many people this is not far from the truth. In European cities, “everyone knows you get along just fine without a car.”
He believes that given the status cars still have in America, the United States will be the last place in the world to restrict automobile traffic in cities.
However, Crawford said that as the world wakes up to the reality of climate change and rising gas prices, that may be starting to change, and he pointed to the transformation of New York’s Times Square, where cars have been banned for more than 10 years, as an arena for change. A sign of what is possible.
“A car-free city is cheaper to build and operate,” he said. “A car-free city is the cleanest to build and operate. And when it’s done, you’ll have a city with the highest quality of life.
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