TEHRAN - World Car-Free Day is a global event held on September 22. It encourages drivers to give up their cars for a day and use public transportation, ride a bicycle, or simply walk.

It is an annual celebration of cities and public life, free from the noise, stress, and pollution of cars. This is a fantastic chance to discuss the importance of exercise with our children as well as the impact of cars on the environment.

Motor vehicles emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which are major causes of global warming. World Car-free Day is celebrated to help the environment and bring awareness to what we can all do to help.

On Car-Free Day, people promote walking, bicycles, public transit, and other forms of sustainable transportation. They also think about what their city would be like with fewer cars and ways to make this happen.

History of World Car-Free Day

Although cars are the most popular and convenient means of transport in most major cities, they have considerable drawbacks. People have protested against the use of cars for decades for several reasons.

Apart from the noise and the pollution, they are responsible for a rise in accidental deaths. They are also linked to heart disease and obesity. In the 1950s, car culture was considered a problem evident in crowded city centers and neighborhoods. The Netherlands and Belgium had a car-free Sunday in 1956 and 1957, respectively.

In 1994, a paper on reducing dependence on cars was distributed at an international conference. In the late 1990s, several European cities began planning car-free projects. In 2000, it was decided to make the day self-standing and held on September 22, and cities worldwide were invited to participate.

The people involved in the sustainable transport movement wanted to see what impact their programs and projects had a decade after the initiative began. They wondered if their programs and projects changed cities for the better or whether all the effort was for nothing. So, they decided to work together and start a program in 2004 to set reasonable goals and measure success. Many cities organize events to mark the day.

Prerequisites

This occasion in Iran is associated with the campaign of Car-Free Tuesdays, a campaign that advises citizens to use public transportation, shared cars, or bicycles at least one day a week instead of a private car, and to travel short distances on foot.

But what is the prerequisite for removing private cars from daily life in cities, especially big cities? In response to this question, urban development experts immediately speak of the necessity of having a proper, efficient, continuous, round-the-clock, and safe public transportation network, and they especially emphasize the need to provide security at night.

They consider the first step to eliminate private cars to be the provision of support mechanisms for transportation in such a way that the traffic flows smoothly and without disruption.

Other alternatives to private cars should be also available to everyone in a cheap, convenient, and safe way.

In many big cities in developed countries, the access routes of the public transport fleet are efficient, safe, clean, have specific timetables, and are adapted for different social groups so that citizens of any age and physical condition do not feel the lack of a private car.

For example, the height of the top of the station with the floor of the bus is adjusted in such a way that people with wheelchairs and strollers can easily enter or exit the bus.

In addition, in some urban spaces, they regularly increase the width of the streets so that pedestrians can pass by keeping a proper physical distance.

Therefore, the cross-sectional width of the street that is used by private cars will be reduced and it will be easier for pedestrians to cross.

According to experts, paying attention to the development of cycling infrastructure also has an important effect in reducing people's desire to use private cars in the long run.

Obviously, this development is provided through the creation of special lanes for cyclists and a wide network of designated routes for the ease of cycling, as well as facilitating access to bicycles through purchase or rental.

Of course, we should not forget to encourage citizens to use public transportation instead of private cars, culture building is one of the most efficient and effective solutions.

If national and provincial officials and famous people such as artists and sportsmen take the initiative in supporting car-free days, and if the media shed light on the effect of cycling and walking on the vitality and health of citizens and the harms of air pollution and noise pollution and depict cities where there is no mention of annoying traffic, alarming sounds of horns, and terrifying brakes and suffocating smoke of cars, then it is a miracle of culture in welcoming the World Car-Free Day.