No Car Daze
<> On September 20th, Montreal held its No Car Day entitled En Ville, Sans Ma Voiture! (roughly translated as the strangely alarmist “In Town, Without My Car!”). Some would argue that this was somewhat of a misnomer, as the no-car space was limited to a small downtown perimeter of a few blocks that lamely avoided two major downtown thoroughfares (Sherbrooke and René-Levesque) and rush hour (the ban on automobiles lasting from 9:30am to 3:30pm). In terms of creating a threshold of inconvenience in order to get people to reconsider using their cars even for one day, I have to admit it came across as a pretty feeble attempt (read: eye-rolling environmental tokenism). To be fair, I’m not really sure how much more you could expect in North America, where the private automobile sits on a pedestal somewhere close to God.
On the plus side, however, walking around inside the no-car zone was a breath of fresh air, both figurative and literal. The most remarkable change was not necessarily the freedom to walk on the street- anyone familiar with Montreal knows its pedestrians making a regular habit of that even in the presence of vehicles - but rather the silence. Thanks to combustion engines, cities have become a veritable cacophony of rumbling, screeching, grinding, humming and honking. Equally amazing to how much noise all the vehicles on our streets make is how used to it we have become- as far as my urban ears knows, nature sounds like the smooth flow of traffic. No Car Day, if nothing else, was a welcome reprieve from this daily auditory assault, available right in the heart of the city.
Inside the no-car perimeter, enjoying the silence
A block outside the no-car perimeter, a distinct lack of silence
October 16th, 2007 at 12:12 am
That’s so great to have a rest from everyday traffic. It annoys greatly!