Backlash grows against Europe's efforts to restrict cars in cities

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BARCELONA — In an effort to ease traffic congestion and curb greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, municipalities from Barcelona to Brussels have embarked on what has been called 'a transportation revolution.' Urban centers across the continent have adopted a host of innovative schemes designed to steer vehicles out of crowded downtowns, creating so-called 15-minute cities — where cars aren't needed and services like banks, barbers, grocery stores and doctors are a short stroll or bike ride away.

in response to the survey."If two-thirds of them already found traffic difficult before Good Move, more than 90% feel it is even worse now."

"Our will is to create social cohesion through dialogue and not confrontation," Brussels City Councillor Vincent Vanhaleweyn, a supporter of Good Move,after the incident."Our will is not to bury the project, but to bring together those for and against it in five months and find a solution for everyone." Thus far, that hasn't happened.

In Oxford, England, problems started in late November, when county councilors approved a trial program to restrict traffic on six clogged arteries, a move that would help bolster the 15-minute city concept. In 2024, officials plan to install traffic cameras and six “traffic filters” — boxes with signs on them informing motorists that traffic is restricted for private automobiles between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

“There were lots of signs about 15-minute cities,” resident and reporter Dave Vetter, who attended the protest, told Yahoo News, “some equating them with prisons and in some cases to concentration camps. The rhetoric was quite extreme.” "For these people, restricting the role of the car in cities is cutting their civil rights. This is crazy," he said, pointing out that"cities around the world have decided to reduce the role of the car." Now he sees those decisions as"the new battlefront," one that is poised to become even more intense as countriesStoll, the director of the Clean Cities Campaign, remains optimistic that common sense will prevail.

 

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