Features
28 Jun 18

Cars permanently banned in Central Park

New York City's Mayor Bill de Blasio has banned cars from Central Park, with the exception of four traverse roadways that were part of the park's original design.

"This was not the purpose of this park to be built for automobiles," said Mr De Blasio. "Literally, it was built before there were automobiles. It was built for people."

Central Park's 325 hectares attract more than 42 million visitors each year. It includes a zoo and boating lakes and has been designated a national historic landmark in 1962.

Motorists have already been banned from a large part of the roads that cross the park in 2015 but the new ban will cover the whole park, except four traverse roadways that were part of the park's original design.

"There's going to be a kind of peace and sense of security that wasn't there before," said Mr De Blasio.

Across the world

Authorities in other cities are also being pressured to ban cars from parks and roads. Here's a small and incomplete overview:

  • In Brussels, Belgium, environmental pressure groups have been advocating a car ban in the Bois de la Cambre forest, close to the famous avenue Louise and currently crossed by important thoroughfares.
  • Also in Brussels, a large section of the avenue connecting the North to the South Station was turned into a car-free zone after a series of demonstrations.
  • In Madrid, Spain, a new park was built after a major highway was moved into an underground tunnel. Madrid is also planning to ban cars from a large part of the city centre by 2020.
  • The city centre of Oslo, Norway, will ban cars from 2019.
  • A new area of the Chinese city of Chengdu is being designed so that people can walk anywhere within 15 minutes, with half of the roads being pedestrian-only.
Authored by: Benjamin Uyttebroeck