More Canadian cities are warming up to the car-free street

Since 2014, one ice cream shop in Montreal has been hosting summer salsa dancing.

As dusk falls, a small section of Wellington Street between 1st and 2nd avenues quickly becomes crowded with dancers. The music booms from a DJ’s tent and strings of lights twinkle from where they’ve been hung in the trees.

“I’m actually not a good dancer, despite my Latin American origins,” said Coun. Kaïla Amaya Munro, who represents the borough. “But just coming out there, listening to the music and being part of the experience while eating ice cream … I think it’s like magic.”

These festivities, hosted by Crèmes Boboule, used to be part of Wellington’s annual “summer party.” Now, they’re incorporated into the car-free streets that have appeared every year since the pandemic. 

“They were just happy to have more outdoor space that they could use, walk, play games on,” Amaya Munro said.

In response to the experience with car-free streets, the next car-free period in Montreal this summer will last longer on some roads and a new street will be added.

Montreal isn’t alone in testing things out. Across Canada, other cities are also working on car-free or pedestrianizing projects.

Information from pedestrianization projects can be used to understand the impacts of going completely car-free, and cities may test out pedestrianization or temporary car-free spaces before committing entirely. 

A first in Vancouver

Pedestrianization projects or pedestrian-first spaces also expand the available space for walkers and cyclists.

In Vancouver, general manager Lon LaClaire discussed just that in a memo to city council about Vancouver‘s Gastown plan, which will be tested with its first seasonal car-free zone on Water Street this summer. 

In Toronto, the city is working on pedestrianizing part of busy Yonge Street and High Park. Other projects to take space from cars have struggled, like CaféTO, but it is reportedly going more smoothly this year.

Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, Halifax and other Canadian cities have also dabbled in deprioritizing cars.

Though progress has been slow, some — particularly businesses — remain concerned about the potential impacts. 

But David Zipper, a senior fellow at the MIT Mobility Initiative in Cambridge, Mass., said research shows that going car-free can boost the bottom line for businesses when it is well-planned and with adaptive changes to make the transition smoother, such as making space for deliveries. 

Amaya Munro said Montreal’s car-free street success hinges on the collaboration between businesses and the municipal government.

“It’s the way of the future,” she said.

The case for car-free streets

According to Zipper, land development in North America has tended toward sprawl. It’s not feasible for most people to go without a car. If they wanted to walk, cycle or use public transportation to get to work or buy groceries, the systems in place to support them are often “inadequate.” 

But in dense, urban places, large streets and street parking are a “very inefficient use” of space, Zipper said. 

“I think we are so used to subsidizing [cars], treating streets as car parking, we don’t even recognize what we’ve lost in doing so,” he said. He suggested using spaces once occupied by cars for bike lanes, gardens or cafés.

Car-free areas were a “beacon of light” to Montrealers during the pandemic, and continue to be, said Amaya Munro. In 2023, a petition to make the car-free street in Amaya Munro’s borough permanent received enough signatures (slightly more than 3,000) to warrant a public consultation.

In addition to the social value, there are also indications that car-free streets can boost the economy.

Montreal’s experience has led it to open more streets since the program started. The existing businesses on the car-free road reportedly saw a boost in their sales.

Mayor Valérie Plante also attributed a drop in Mont-Royal’s vacancy rate for commercial buildings — to 5.6 per cent in 2023 from 14.5 per cent in 2018 — to the car-free project.

Projects to improve walkability in cities have also reduced air and noise pollution levels. Paris reduced ambient noise by 2.5 decibels on its first “Car-Free Day.” Istanbul saw a 32 per cent reduction of nitrogen dioxide in four years after pedestrianizing 295 streets. 

Air pollution from cars and other gas-burning sources has been linked to serious health problems. In 2022, transportation was Canada’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in Canada. 

Jonn Axsen, a professor at Simon Fraser University and director of its sustainable transportation research team, noted that car-free streets won’t be “a big player” in reaching net zero by 2050, but could still have value as a long-term project.

“We kind of have to do everything,” he said.

Although it might seem counterintuitive, cities might actually need to make less space for cars in order to see a drop in demand for that space, according to Zipper.

People change their behaviour “based on the availability of pavement space,” he said, so they react to less car space by using their cars less. Those who might have driven will take public transit, walk or just stay home. In the same way, adding a lane to a highway doesn’t reduce traffic in the long term because more people will opt to drive.

Lockers and rickshaws

One of the first concerns to arise when pedestrianized or car-free streets are proposed can be the belief that fewer cars will mean fewer customers in the businesses along those streets. Zipper said this is a common misconception. 

When Toronto replaced 136 on-street parking spots on Bloor Street with a bike lane, researchers found more customers frequented local businesses and spent more money on average. 

That finding has been repeated “over and over and over again” around the world, said Zipper.

There are other realities of business ownership that a car-free plan has to account for, though. 

Toronto’s Yonge Street pedestrianization pilot had to dedicate space for loading and deliveries for the local businesses. 

In Vancouver, Elise Yurkowski, director of marketing for Gastown’s BIA, said some businesses are concerned that summer tourists won’t know where to go if buses can’t take them directly to the neighbourhood. They hope that their proximity to the SkyTrain at Waterfront Station — a five-minute walk — will make up for it.

In Montreal, to ensure pedestrians didn’t feel hesitant about making purchases at businesses on car-free streets because they’d have to carry them, Amaya Munro said that her borough set up a “lock and go” locker system. 

Making car-free zones permanent has other challenges, including weather. Snow removal would need to be addressed differently, said Toon Dreessen, an architect in Ottawa who has developed plans for car-free spaces. 

But he estimated there are maybe 40 days in a year that we wouldn’t want to use the streets because of the weather, and asked: “Why don’t we design our city for the other 325 that are pretty good?”

Accessibility also raises concerns. Shutting down roads can mean rerouting bus services, and people with disabilities travelling by car might not be able to reach their front door. 

One solution in Verdun, a borough of Montreal, is to add free taxis and auto rickshaws to take pedestrians from one end of the street to another.

Dreessen said that car-free streets usually have to accommodate emergency vehicles, so a similar system could be put in place for disability vehicles. 

Kenzie McCurdy, a wheelchair user and part of Stopgap Ottawa, which provides ramps to stores with a small step, said additional car-free streets could be great for those with mobility devices, giving them more space to move.

But a permanent car-free zone would need to be thoughtfully designed with accessibility in mind, McCurdy said. That means frequent ramps, no interlocking brick stonework that can be hard for mobility devices to roll on and benches for folks who can’t stay on their feet. 

Dreessen said he’d start any plan for a permanent car-free street with a comprehensive “design vision” for the space. He’s been advocating for a project of that kind for Ottawa’s ByWard Market. In 2020, he developed an alternate plan in response to the one approved by the city. 

“We deserve to have beautiful, safe, accessible spaces that allow us to live our lives for our fullest potential,” Dreessen said. “If you’re not prepared to be bold and to lead from a position of design excellence, it just doesn’t work.”