Copenhagen’s pedestrianized Stroget: Day without cars could look this way elsewhere, too
Copenhagen, long considered one of the best cities in the world for cyclists, nonetheless has an air-quality problem that often puts it over EU standards for pollution. As part of plans for changing that, Copenhagen’s city council has voted to try a car-free day this fall, probably the last Sunday of next September.
The idea gained favor after recent car-free days in Paris and Stockholm. In Paris, which closed only part of the city in its first-time experiment last month, Mayor Anne Hidalgo was so pleased that she wants to make next year’s event bigger and perhaps more than one day. Emissions levels went down by as much as 40% in the limited experiment.
Morten Kabell, Copenhagen’s deputy mayor for environment, told local press that “In Paris, people suddenly realized how fantastic the boulevards are and how wonderful Paris’s urban space is when it isn’t filled with cars. We can do the same in Copenhagen. At the same time we can gather concrete figures on what air pollution would be in a large city like Copenhagen if the cars weren’t there,”
