London to have ‘car-free day’ in September

In a bid to highlight the ongoing problem of pollution from vehicles, London is to stage its biggest car-free day yet on 22 September. The Sunday date has been timed to coincide with World Car Free Day, which encourages motorists to give up their cars for a day. This type of activity is increasingly popular in cities worldwide – with Bogota, Colombia, and Jakarta, Indonesia, among the early adopters – as authorities wake up to the health impacts. More than half of air pollution in the UK capital is ca
June 21, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

In a bid to highlight the ongoing problem of pollution from vehicles, London is to stage its biggest car-free day yet on 22 September.

The Sunday date has been timed to coincide with World Car Free Day, which encourages motorists to give up their cars for a day. This type of activity is increasingly popular in cities worldwide – with Bogota, Colombia, and Jakarta, Indonesia, among the early adopters – as authorities wake up to the health impacts.

More than half of air pollution in the UK capital is caused by vehicles, and is thought to be responsible for 9,000 early deaths each year.

London mayor Sadiq Khan said 12.3 miles of roads will be closed in the centre of the city.

“I encourage as many Londoners as possible to join in the fun and see the city from a different perspective,” Khan said.

A variety of events will be held promoting alternative modes, such as public transit, cycling and walking. Charity London Play is using funding from 1466 Transport for London to make 200 streets “open for play - and closed to traffic” on the day.

Related Content

  • April 30, 2015
    Cable cars come of age in trans-continental expansion
    David Crawford explores a high-level option of public transport. Sharing its origin with that of ski lifts at winter sports resorts in the European Alps, urban aerial cable transport is attracting growing interest as a low-footprint, low-energy alternative to conventional public transport that can swoop over ground-level traffic congestion.
    Read More
  • June 12, 2019
    ETSC says road safety is ‘vicious circle’
    Urban road safety is a key problem in Europe, an issue that needs to be addressed as a priority. That is the finding of a new report by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC). The ETSC’s report reveals that road deaths on urban roads decreased at around half the rate of those on rural roads over the period 2010-2017. The report also shows that vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, account for 70% of those killed and seriously injured on urban roads. Dovilė Adminait
    Read More
  • September 26, 2019
    Sign language reduces human error says Clearview
    Wrong-way warning systems and advanced queue detection can help to reduce human error. They can also cut road accidents – and therefore road deaths, says Clearview Intelligence Where were nearly 1,800 deaths on the UK’s roads in 2018 – an average of five people dying each day. The largest single cause of serious injury is crashes at junctions (accounting for 33% of incidents), while the largest single cause of death was run-off road crashes (30%) “With vehicles increasingly being designed with saf
    Read More
  • February 6, 2020
    MaaS by any other name
    Has the roll-out of Mobility as a Service stalled - or could it just be that multimodal travel is simply happening under a variety of different names?
    Read More

Highlighted Content