You don’t need a car to live your daily life. Don’t believe us? Just ask the residents of Vauban, a neighborhood in the German city of Freiburg. In Vauban, cars are allowed, but only if they crawl along at the pace of a pedestrian (the speed limit is three miles an hour), give priority to people not in cars, and stop only temporarily for pickup or drop-off. The street doesn’t have parking places, and kids play on the streets unattended. Vauban was built two decades ago as a radical experiment in sustainability. In some ways, it’s still as radical as it was then. Few families who live there own cars, and it’s possible to walk to all the grocery stores, cafes, offices, and schools that make up the mostly middle-class neighborhood of about 5,000 people, which is made up of dense housing in apartment buildings. For those who need to go to downtown Freiburg for work, it’s a 15 or 20-minute ride on the bus or light rail to the central station. What Vauban shows us is that there are plenty of reasons why this type of “car-free” development makes sense. There are the obvious reasons—pollution from cars is a major health threat in cities, and emissions from tailpipes are a major contributor to global warming. Plus, walking and biking improves health and connect neighbors. Then there are the bigger issues like equity—for those who can’t afford cars, or who are too young or old to drive, better options for transportation can also change their ability to get to work or run errands.
Lessons from a German neighborhood that got rid of parking spaces 20 years ago
More of Today's Solutions
Baked Bites: how Frisco students turned a passion for baking into a force for...
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM At a Baked Bites pop-up in Frisco, Texas, the transaction looks simple: you place a pre-order, you pick ...
Read MoreThe world’s first solar ambulance just completed its first real-world t...
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The question most ambulances are designed to answer is how fast a patient can reach a hospital. In ...
Read MoreFish poop feeds world’s largest vertical farm
Almost the size of two entire city blocks, a sprawling new building under construction in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, will soon hold the title of ...
Read MoreInsights from a language expert: master confident communication
Communication is more than simply the words you use; it is also about how you use them. Confident communication is more than a show ...
Read More
