On 22 September, more than hundred million people in fifteen
hundred cities, observed ‘car-free day’ as part of their environmental and
health consciousness. The car-free day had its origin in France in 1998 when
the people in thirty-five French cities gave up their cars for one day and
walked the distance, moved around on bikes, skateboarded and rollerbladed. Then
in 2000, the European Union included the car-free day as part of its
environmental platform. From then on, the car-free day has become a yearly
event in several countries.
This initiative has worked wonders among the citizens in
raising their awareness as far as their surroundings are concerned. At the same
time, they have also become quite health-conscious.
On the other hand, we haven’t seen anyone, not even the
media, to broadcast or carry this piece of news of the observance of the
car-free day. It’s quite relevant for Bangladesh. We actually need this piece
of information for our sake -- for the sake of our traffic-related mess. We really
are in deep crisis about the environment, our health as well as the realization
of the state of our traffic. To my mind, we need a sea-change in our behaviour
on the highways, streets, roads and alleys. We have a lot to learn. Our experts
are suggesting many steps, traffic and environment departments are mulling over
several ideas. But no-one is proposing a car-free day in at least one city to
start with.
One might say: ‘that’s ridiculous; it’s a hilarious idea! It
won’t solve anything!’ But think twice. We won’t lose anything if we have a
car-free day in Dhaka city. If we want to go out of Dhaka, we can take the
train. If New York city in the USA can spend a day without cars, if Mumbai can
have a car-free day, so can we. We just need to think and decide. We can start
with the Bailey Road. On a different thought, we have two Elephant Roads; we
can make one free of cars on a weekend.
For our future car-free zones, the city planner could start
thinking about special thoroughfares where there would be no cars; the special
zones would only be for the pedestrians, shoppers and shopkeepers. The examples
are a plenty. Look at how several other countries have done it; they first
created a wide, long road and allowed the shopping malls to grow on the both
sides of the road. The people can only walk through that road. Only walk, not
even bikes. The mobile food joint are also allowed on the both sides. Citizens
roam around, window shop and shop without any fear of being hit by a car.
And imagine the amount of fuel we burn in a day in our
traffic madness! We’d be able save immense amount of money if we just introduce
a weekly car-free day. We don’t have to restrict the car for all day; we can
stop the cars for simply six hours; well, we can start with a one-hour trial and
see what happens.
The future generation, the children, would be aware about
the health and environment; they would learn more from this day than they would
learn from textbooks.
The impact of a car-free day would be massive – both
financially and socially. Given our sense of traffic management and behaviour,
observing a car-free day and creating car-free zones would be a great start for
the desired change. We don’t have to do anything right away; but let’s start
researching about it.
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