What US cities have active car-free movements?

August 26, 2020 10:23 PM

Where in the US are cities and/or their citizens actively working to reduce the need for and use of cars? (I know about SF and NYC already, looking for smaller cities.)

I know some places already have car-free zones, or are car-free for historical reasons.

But where in the US can I go to find a group of people who are currently actively working on ideas like "let's ban cars for a day every week" or "let's try making this area car-free... and then this one..." with an eye toward pushing things as far as possible?

Preference for smaller places - not much more than 100,000 residents.

posted by sibilatorix to Travel & Transportation (10 answers total)

More than 100k, and not specifically car-free zones, but Minneapolis is working very hard on reducing the amount of cars in the city. Their 2040 plan specifically revolves around making it easier to be car-free and harder to drive in the city and find parking. They also ended single-family zoning as a way to increase density, among other things.
posted by signondiego at 6:31 AM on August 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

You might have luck looking at the Complete Streets Coalition*. Even though it's not as ambitious as car-free, over 1400 communities in the U.S. have passed Complete Streets policies, which indicates at least some elected officials and residents/advocates are pushing for de-prioritizing car travel. It will be a good signpost for where there is already active support. They also have assessed which places have good policies and implementation, since that can vary greatly: 2020 report on policies in the 40 most populous US cities; 2018 report on the best city policies enacted that year.

*now under the aegis of Smart Growth America apparently, which, as an urban planner, I wish we didn't have to shoehorn all sorts of policies into the "growth" model.
posted by spamandkimchi at 7:11 AM on August 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Also Ciclovia has inspired a ton of bike advocates, sustainability orgs, cities across the U.S. to push for and create similar once-a-week, once-a-month, or annual Open Streets. The list of places with Open Streets initiatives is impressively long and includes smaller cities.
posted by spamandkimchi at 7:18 AM on August 27, 2020

Chicago has the Active Transport Alliance, which does things like sponsoring "Bike The Drive" -- a day when ~20 miles of Lake Shore Drive is closed to cars. They have also been pressing for more "Slow Streets" or "Shared Streets" during COVID-19, which have barriers to keep car traffic slowed down and allow people/kids to ride bikes and jog etc through neighborhood streets. Good stuff. (Sorry if not applicable to your smaller cities point, but still good stuff!)
posted by Mid at 7:40 AM on August 27, 2020

Ann Arbor Michigan. We have the Washtenaw Biking and Walking Coalition and the city's Healthy Streets Program - and a fair amount of pushback from some city council members and others. It's a very heated issue here.
posted by leslies at 7:52 AM on August 27, 2020

Portland, OR: The Street Trust
Philadelphia: 5th Square
posted by Automocar at 8:06 AM on August 27, 2020

Culdesac is attempting to build a car-free city from scratch.
posted by Troupe of trained rats at 11:54 AM on August 27, 2020

Not sure if this is of interest, but a lot of bike advocates have been working on reducing car reliance for years, all over the country.

Here are a couple interesting examples of maps for Milwaukee, WI and Cleveland, OH based on BikeAble analyses done by the Rails to Trails Conservancy.
posted by acridrabbit at 5:02 PM on August 27, 2020

Here's the Burlington, VT version. Some of the demonstration projects have included car-free days on some major thoroughfares. Others are much longer duration taking over lanes of traffic for other activities.
posted by meinvt at 6:30 PM on August 27, 2020

A related question would be what are a city's characteristics that make a shift to carfree living feasible - or conversely, not feasible. You probably want to pick a place where the chances of it working are good.
posted by Baeria at 10:08 PM on August 27, 2020 [1 favorite]