This Norwegian City Plans To Ban All Cars By 2019
By Paulo Acoba
City Council in the Capital of Norway have unveiled bold new plans to permanently ban cars from their city center by 2019.
Imagine New York City where there isn’t any traffic because cars are banned and all you hear are the chatter of people, the rumbling of subways beneath your feet and cyclists whizzing by you in dedicated bike lanes. It’s a future according to Reuters earlier last week (Oct. 15, 2015) that Norway wants to make a reality. City council members in the city of Oslo, Norway have decided that they want to do something drastic to reduce pollution and encourage green transportation. In lieu of investing money to support a car infrastructure, instead the city will build 60 KM’s of dedicated bike lanes and will fund investments in public transportation. That means more buses, light rail system upgrades and improve pedestrian walkways.
"“We want to have a car-free center,” Lan Marie Nguyen Berg, lead negotiator for the Green Party in Oslo, told reporters.“We want to make it better for pedestrians, cyclists. It will be better for shops and everyone.”"
Cities like Paris have dabbled with the idea of a car-free city center by banning cars for a day just this past September. In addition, European cities London already make it hard for cars to park and traverse within city limits by imposing congestion charges on cars coming in during certain times of the work week. Shop owners in Oslo, Norway are definitely concerned that reduced traffic to the town center will translate to lower sales figures but the City council assures them that the exact opposite is more likely to happen.
Humans, while reluctant to initial change, will more than likely adapt to this new precedent. With four years to implement the change and prepare the city, the transition to a car-free city center should go smoothly. Hopefully, studies can be taken from Oslo and applied to cities worldwide.
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