On Oct 1st the second largest central business district in Johannesburg, South Africa select streets in will be entirely off-limits to cars. One city. One month. No cars.

In 2013 the city of Suwon in South Korea undertook the same challenge (photo above). And in short, it worked. After the car-free month in Suwon, the city decided to lower the speed limit which reduced congestion, car parking was permanently removed from certain streets and sidewalks, and every month Suwon continues to host a car-free day.

It’s an experiment called the EcoMobility World Festival (ecomobility, meaning environmentally-friendly means of tranport like biking, walking and public transit) and the goal is to “showcase the potential for a neighborhood within a major world city to adopt an ecomobile lifestyle and experience its impact.”

For one month, a significant part of Johannesburg will become an example of a sustainable, environmentally-conscious city of the future could look like.

Sandton is one of the most congested areas in Johannesburg with around 80,000 cars and more than 100,000 people moving within the neighborhood daily. No cars on these typically congested streets will be a big change

http://blog.publicbikes.com/2015/09/one-city-one-month-no-cars/


The City of Johannesburg has sought to reassure Sandton motorists that the upcoming car-free month won't be the disaster they expect.

"Let us say, probably on day one, there are going to be things [that] are not going to be business as usual..." Lisa Seftel, executive transport director at the City of Johannesburg, said on Tuesday.

"Sandton is not going to survive if everybody is going to come in private cars and we are trying to provide quality public transport."

For the first time in South Africa, the EcoMobility World Festival will be held in Sandton.

Those who work in Sandton will need to use alternative forms of transport, such as buses, bicycles and the Gautrain or travel on foot.

There is a public transport loop, with a bus lane, that runs around the expanse of Sandton's CBD.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Carmageddon-to-hit-Sandton-20150922