Car and Driver - USA (2020-04)

TURF WAR

As of January 29, 2020, the 450,000 people who drive in to San
Francisco each day must avoid a 1.9-mile stretch of one of the
city’s busiest roads. Privately owned automobiles are now banned
from Market Street to make way for pedestrians, bicyclists, taxis,
buses, historic streetcars, and freight trucks.
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portation Agency, thinks a car-free Market Street will support his
goal of safely moving the maximum number of people in the mini-
mum amount of space. Buses will travel faster without cars getting
in their way, which should attract new riders. New bike lanes are
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“Half of our most deadly intersections are there,” he says.

Wa l k T h i s Way

Busy thoroughfares in San Francisco and New York City
are testing car-free zones.

If you think blocking

car traffic from a single

street amounts to a

declaration of war by

urban planners, you’re

not going to like what

they’ve been doing in

the rest of the world.

Copenhagen,

Denmark

Strøget, Copenhagen’s

0.7-mile-long pedestrian

shopping zone, was

first closed to cars

as an experiment in

1962. Copenhagen’s
      network of car-free
      streets has grown
      steadily ever since.

Fez, Morocco

Fes el-Bali, a walled

section of Morocco’s

second-largest city, is a

UNESCO World Heritage

site and may be the

largest urban car-free

zone on the planet.

Oslo, Norway

Oslo’s city council

faced pushback from

business owners when

it announced plans to

ban cars from the city’s

center; so instead, the

council decided to elim-

inate almost all street-

level parking spaces.

Mission accomplished.

ZONED

OUT

MARKET STREET
—
This artery runs
from San Francisco’s
bay through the
heart of downtown.

San Francisco’s policy follows New York

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they mark a change in the way urban planners

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Is a car-free wave poised to sweep across

urban American roads? Probably not. Few

streets in the U.S. can match the hustle and

bustle of San Francisco’s Market Street or

Manhattan’s 14th. A street—especially a wide

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ones, like those common in Europe, can be com-

fortable with less activity. But U.S. cities spent

a fortune widening lanes for autos in the 20th

century. Remove cars now and many of those

streets will feel deserted. Fresno, California, and

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to jump-start their struggling pedestrian malls.

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to car-free streets, many advocate for less dra-

matic solutions, including allocating lanes for

bus rapid transit, such as in Madison, Wisconsin,

and banning cars from entertainment hot spots

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to every lane of pavement is gradually ending.

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probably be considered only for the most bustling

corridors. —David Zipper

22 PHOTOGRAPH BY ELYSA WEITALA ~ APRIL 2020 ~ CAR AND DRIVER