‘Everything suddenly looks colorful’
In Bogota, the capital of Colombia, a large part of the city is car-free every Sunday. Would such an initiative also work in Amsterdam? ‘A car-free day sends out a signal.’
Every Sunday Hugo Armando Márquez Cardoso (43 years old) wakes up in a different city. His beloved Bogota – normally a rushed metropolis where guzzling cars and puffing buses seem to be the service – resembles one. The reason? The Colombian capital is partly car-free on Sundays.
The car-free event in Bogota has been around for 48 years and is ciclovia called, which is roughly passed on to ‘bicycle road’. to entail. Some 127 kilometers of highways are closed to motor vehicles every day, including public holidays, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. And so once a week the wide avenues of the metropolis are filled with pedestrians, cyclists and skaters.
“The character of the city is changing,” says Márquez Cardoso, who marries the Ciclovía every week. “Life in Bogota is stressful. During the week the city feels gray, but on Sundays everything suddenly looks very colorful.”
The Ciclovía ironing parks, where picnickers can settle down. At dozens of stalls, corn cobs are added and oranges pressed. And if you have a flat tire, you can easily have it repaired at one of the many bicycle repair shops along the side of the road.
A mega operation
Márque Cardoso is one of approximately two million residents who donate to the car-free day every week. A mega operation, says Daniela Hernandez, project manager at the Institute of Recreation and Sports, responsible for the Ciclovía. “We start planning at 3 am. In total we met 217 people on this day, excluding extra forces such as police and volunteers.”
Car-free Sunday is not just a matter of getting off the road, she explains. “For example, we can also provide the 167 food and drink stalls and we organize activities such as cycling lessons, dance workshops and performances.”
The initiative for the Ciclovía came in 1974, after a lobbying campaign from a small group of Bogotans. Hernandez: “The reason was simple. People enjoy cycling. But the Ciclovía became more popular as there was more awareness about health and the importance of exercise.”
In 1976 it became an official event, promoted and organized by the municipality. According to the organizers, the health benefits are great. So late a scientific study see that seniors who live near the Ciclovía are more likely to reach the recommended 150 minutes of walking per week.
But the car-free Sunday doesn’t mean much to the residents of Bogota anymore. “We are a fractured society,” said Marquéz Cardoso, referring to Colombia’s turbulent history, which had reached armed conflict for decades. “But on weekends, different classes and neighborhoods move to the same place. We enjoy our city together. On Sunday we are equals.”
Awareness
At first glance, Amsterdam does not seem to be comparable to massive and chaotic Bogota. Nevertheless, a car-free Sunday is also a good idea in our capital, says Florrie de Pater, board member of the Fietsersbond Amsterdam. “It sends out the signal that the car is no longer the central means of transport,” says De Pater. “Certainly now that gas and oil are becoming scarcer, it is important to create awareness.”
In 2009, the Fietsersbond was already pushing for a car-free Sunday on the Weesper- and Wibautstraat. In the end, that didn’t go through, because it turned out to be logistically not feasible. For example, there were problems with the accessibility of emergency and emergency services and the supply of companies, says a municipal spokesperson. It was also organizing because of the road closures and diversions.
Now that there is an energy crisis and curbing oil consumption becomes a necessity, the idea is bubbling up again and again. So argued the international energy agency IEA in March before the introduction of car-free Sundays in major cities.
Vulnerable cyclists
However, the municipality of Amsterdam has announced that there are currently no plans for a car-free Sunday. The Municipal Executive is working on fewer cars in the city center with the Autoluw programme. The words say that the municipality is open to ideas that can make a structural contribution to this.
The father believes that a weekly ban on motorized vehicles is good for the position of cyclists and the creation of space and a liveable city. “Cyclists remain vulnerable and still not have all the space they need,” she argues. “A car-free Sunday would help bring that to the fore.”
From Cape Town to Brussels: Car-free Sundays are organized here
Bogota is one of the first, but certainly no longer the only city that organizes car-free (Sun) days. For example, parts of Jakarta (Indonesia) and Rosario (Argentina) closed to motorized traffic. also in Cape Town (South Africa) and Vancouver (Canada) successful car-free events are regularly organized.
However, most cities organize the car-free days sporadically. Between 16 and 22 September, car-free days will be initiated in several European cities as part of the European Mobility Week, as in Paris and Brussels. is there an initiative on September 22 worldwide London participate.
In Paris already started a car-free scheme in 2016, called Paris Breath (Paris breathes). Particular quarters (parts of the arrondissements) between starting at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. The first to fourth arrondissements have recently become car-free every first Sunday of the month.
Reminiscent of the early seventies, when cars in the Netherlands were ten Sundays off the Dutch highways during the oil crisis. Car-free days were also organized in Amsterdam between 2007 and 2009, but the experiment was not repeated.
Cycling or skating on the asphalt of the Wibautstraat therefore seems out of the question for the time being, but Amsterdammers can sign up together with their neighbors for a concrete residential street. Through this residents’ initiative, a (part of) street is temporarily closed to motorized traffic.
World City Series
There is no city like Amsterdam, but many of the issues that concern us are also elderly people in the world. In the series Wereldstad investigate how other cities deal with this.