Car-Free Day

Can Flanders come outside to play?

“I want to live,” a Brussels friend once responded when asked why she didn’t ride her bicycle to work. She didn’t look like she was kidding.

Not all European cities are as bicycle-friendly as, say, The Hague, where until not very long ago the Dutch prime minister would pedal to work. Most are car-infested, and Brussels is surely one of them. More than half of motorised movements are shorter than five kilometres. A quarter are shorter than one kilometre.

But not on Sunday, 18 September, when the streets of Brussels and many other cities in Flanders belong to the non-motorised. It is Autoloze Zondag, or Car-Free Sunday, part of the European Mobility Week, when more than 1,000 municipalities across Europe organise all kinds of events in order to promote “sustainable mobility”. Local governments in Brussels and Flanders encourage commuters to carpool or use public transport. Parents are encouraged to find a different way to bring their kids to school.

In Brussels, this is the 10th edition of a festival that is growing more popular every year. More than 85% of people polled said they were happy with the initiative. They take the opportunity and cruise the wide lanes that are normally reserved for noisy, fuming traffic jams. Research shows that during a car-free day, it is six to eight times quieter and the air is three to four times cleaner. Makes you understand a bit better why some Japanese tourists wear surgical masks when they visit our fair city. The idea of a car-free day was born during the oil crisis of the 1970s but wasn’t institutionalised until the year 2000, when the European Commission declared 22 September to be European Day of Sustainable Urban Mobility. Brussels and Flanders joined the movement one year later and have banned all non-essential traffic from city centres ever since on the Sunday before.

Weather obliging, Car-Free Day is always a lot of fun. You can test out a “go-cart train” in Antwerp, enjoy some hapjes on the city of Mechelen and dig into a 10th anniversary cake in Brussels Central Station. With more than 30 municipalities taking part, the possibilities are endless. Take the kids and discover the city like you’ve never seen it before. You’ll live.