Uploaded on 2015-12-15 by RoserIgual

The last 29th June, it started in Brussels a CDS to make the city center walkable.with the plan to transform the way trafic flows around its streets and create one of the biggest car-free areas in Europe (50ha). The pedestrian area, called the « Comfort zone » double its current size, makind it the second-largest in Europe vehind Venice (Italy). The test area will last eight months before work commences on redisigning the roads for walkers. The aim is to interactuate with the citizens by testing the area and the urban changes, proposing ideas and participating in the development of the city and its livability. In the plan, some two-way streets became one-way to accommodate more foot trafic. Many parking places were removed, replaced with cycling lanes. Underground parking was offered to residents in the zone who wanted to keep their cars. The pilot area includes a stretch of the busy Boulevard Anspach from De Brouckere to Rue du Lombard, as well as streets either side of the boulevard. The philosophy of the plan was to eradicate peak morning and evening trafic ( which represents 30 to 40 % of the city centre's total trafic), and to transform the area in a new green point in the city (from 200m2 in the present to 3250m2) and to make ciyle paths (3km) to promote the use of the bycicle and the walking as way of movility trhough the city. Despite de advantages, this CDS project has been critized because it does not really take in account the real problem of the trafic in the city, by reducing it, but it just redirect the trafic in other roads aroud the area, increasing the trafic along residential streets and ring roads outside the zone. ![Traffic in the center][1] ![Traffic in the center 2 ][2] ![Walkable center 1][3] ![Walkable center 2][4] [1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14502182728090864.jpg [2]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14502182939659823.jpg [3]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14502183149054427.jpg [4]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14502183382820931.jpg