Paris’s car-free day was not without controversy, not least because it wasn’t a totally carless day and was limited to only around one-third of the city. After a standoff with police, authorities were only able to make car-free certain parts of the city centre, stretching between Bastille and the Champs Elysées, and the outer Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, and only between 11am and 6pm. In the rest of the city, cars were allowed but at 20km an hour. — The Guardian
Paris, which had a mostly car-free day on Sunday, September 27th, experienced smog-free blue skies and a largely smiling populace, but it's not the first major metropolis to sort of go pedestrian. During a July weekend in 2011, famously car-centric Los Angeles shut down one of its main transit arteries, the 405 freeway, for infrastructural modification in what was nicknamed "Carmaggedon." The stay-off-the-roads frenzy leading up to the closure was so successful that most people took a staycation in their homes, leading city officials to play down the threat the next time the 405 needed to be shut down. (People still needed to spend money to stimulate the local economy, after all.)
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