Car-free days

[3] While projects along these lines had taken place from time to time on an ad hoc basis starting with the 1973 oil crisis, it was only in October 1994 that a structured call for such projects was issued in a keynote speech by Eric Britton at the International Ciudades Accessibles (Accessible Cities) Conference held in Toledo, Spain.

The first national campaign was inaugurated in Britain by the Environmental Transport Association in 1997, the French followed suit in 1998 as In town, without my car!

In 1996, a Dutch action group, Pippi Autoloze Zondag,[6] started a national campaign for car free days.

Every major city government in the Netherlands received Pippi's proposals to implement car free days, forcing them to debate the issue.

The following chronology assembles some of the main events of the last decades, which together have gradually built on each other's accomplishments to leave us today with a movement that is only now beginning to get under way.

[43] While not an officially organized Car-Free Day, every year traffic in Israel stops (except for emergency vehicles) for more than 24 hours in observance of Yom Kippur.

Cycling enthusiasts of the Hiloni stream and other religions take advantage of this, and roads (except in religious neighborhoods) become de facto esplanade and cycleways.