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Sunday, February 6, 2011

A Day Without Cars

This past Thursday was an interesting day here in Bogota. The city designates one day each year as "car-free" where no private vehicles are allowed to be driven inside the city limits. The idea is to encourage people to explore and utilize other forms of transportation such as taxis, bicycles, the Transmillenio bus system, or even walking.

Bogota already has what's called the "Pica Placa" system in place to help reduce traffic congestion. The system requires cars with certain license plate numbers to not be on the road one day per week. For example, plate numbers ending in a 1 or 2 can't be used on Monday, 3 or 4 on Tuesday, and so on. The "no-car" day is just the next step I guess.

The traffic was non-existent and there were far more people walking and bicycling. Interestingly enough, there was a much more relaxed feeling in the city. I love the idea and think that some other cities might benefit if they'd give it a try.

2 comments:

  1. Jeez and we finally just got Ciclavia! First one this year is April http://www.ciclavia.org/

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  2. From what I've seen, each city in Colombia has at least one large road that's closed to traffic every Sunday for bicycles to use. I was thinking of writing a story about it. Maybe I will...

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