Skip to content

Car-free day has benefits for business

Dear editor, How many of the people that drive regularly down a street to shop in one or two stores are aware of what all the stores and businesses in that street have to offer?

Dear editor,

How many of the people that drive regularly down a street to shop in one or two stores are aware of what all the stores and businesses in that street have to offer?

Few of them. A car-free Sunday is therefore the best opportunity for all the businesses in that street to be discovered by lots of potential customers.

Car-free Sunday in many countries is when a relatively wide area of a town is off-limits to cars, either once a year or once a month, depending on the town.

Paradoxically, car-free Sundays came well after major shopping streets became car-free year round, first in Copenhagen and Munich in the 1960s, then in many towns in Western Europe from the 1970s on.

Since then, year-round pedestrian shopping streets have opened in thousands of towns, big and small, around the world: Asia, South America, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, etc.

Many of the pedestrian shopping areas I have seen in several countries have been open for so long that young adults have always known them. It is obvious by now that it does work.

Best wishes for a happy celebration on Sept. 25.

J-L Brussac,

Coquitlam