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Oslo to Ban Cars in the City Center by 2019

Paris was one of the biggest cities in the world to be part of this year’s World Car Free Day, set for September 22. We heard the capital’s traffic was about half as busy as it would be on a regular day, which means the initiative didn’t work as some expected. Norway, Europe’s leading EV buyer, however, is serious about cutting emissions by 2020, and one of the ways they’ll do it is through banning cars for good.
Soon, cars will no longer drive in Oslo's city center 1 photo
Photo: www.visitoslo.com
Sure, the northern Europe state has a relatively small population, which means they are not the biggest car buyers on the old continent. Even so, in terms of market share, no country compares to Norway, considering one in three vehicles registered is a plug-in electric here.

Still, nothing compares to you, and I’m not hinting at Sinead O’Connor’s legendary song, but rather towards the idea that you can’t get more fresh air than in a car-free zone.

At least that is what the country’s officials have decided. According to The Guardian, Oslo’s leftist city government said on Monday that it wants to ban private cars from the city center by 2019 as part of a plan to turn down the volume - which reads "cut greenhouse gas emissions."

For those who haven’t been watching European politics, we’ll remind you the Labour Party and its allies, the Socialist Left and the Green Party, had been dealing the cards since September 14, when they won the municipal elections in the Norwegian capital.

The winner takes it all, and in this case, they take all the cars away. Well, sort of. The political group presented a platform focused on the environment and the fight against climate change. Among other interventions, the program implies banning private vehicles in the city center by 2019. How many people will be affected by this decision, you wonder? Well, according to the source, about 1,000 people live, while some 90,000 work there.

Whether or not local businesses will be affected seems to be a matter the city’s officials have yet to figure out, but this restriction is not the only action. They also plan to divest fossil fuels from their pension funds, build more bicycle lanes, subside the purchase of electric bicycles, and reduce automobile traffic in the city as a whole by 20% by 2919 and 30% by 2030.

Once you go green, you can never go back.
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