On the rise in American cities: the car-free zone

Pedestrians, bicyclists, and joggers are king of the road – at least sometimes – as more US cities ban autos from parks or designated districts.

from the May 2, 2007 edition

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Smaller US cities, from Davenport, Iowa, to Huntington Beach, Calif., are also starting to create car-free zones, according to Mr. Welle's studies.

Beginning this month, El Paso will detour cars from seven roads every Sunday from 7 to 11 a.m. so that cyclists, joggers, and pedestrians can use them instead.

"City leaders were faced with a challenge: to get a poor city of overweight, sedentary people moving when there weren't any parks or [bicycle] lanes," says Robin Stallings of the Texas Bicycle Coalition. A national magazine declared the city one of the four fattest in the US, he says, "and that really got everyone's attention."

Two years of planning and $100,000 in donations made the program possible. El Paso is the first ciclovia city in Texas – and it needs it more than most, says Beto O'Rourke, the city councilman who championed the idea. It has just 25 percent of the park space of the average US city, a smaller tax base, and few spaces for pedestrians or bicyclists, he says. "This solves a lot of problems at once."

The trend reflects cities' response to residents who, after streaming back to city centers, want more pedestrian amenities.

"The great thing about ciclovia is that cities can do it very inexpensively. All the infrastructure is already there; there is no added capital cost," says Gil Penalosa, former parks and recreation director for Bogotá who helped expand its network of closed roads from 8 miles in 1997 to 70 miles today.

In some ciclovia cities, such as Guadalahara, Mexico, fears that autoless streets would cause economic hardship have dissolved. Some merchants actually had to return to their stores on Sundays because the thousands of visitors wanted everything from food and drink to curios.

"The economic boost to Guadalahara has been tremendous," says Rob Sadowsky, a Chicago bike activist who recently visited the city for a ciclovia symposium. Mr. Sadowsky is organizing an August event in the Windy City that, if successful, would extend next year from May to October.

In the US, say observers, the clamoring for car-free park space is intensifying because of two other trends: global warming and obesity rates.

"Climate change and the obesity crisis have [rejuvenated] the movement for car-free space," says Paul White of Transportation Alternatives, which works to reclaim roads from autos. As of last year, he notes, more of Earth's inhabitants live in cities than in rural areas. "Now we have to figure out what urban habitat will sustain ourselves ... it's all about reducing car use."

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