Why Car-Free Cities Aren’t Right Around the Corner

Governing: Jersey City, N.J., experimented with closing a few blocks of downtown to traffic this past fall. The densely populated city across the Hudson River from New York wanted to create a pedestrian plaza for residents to explore restaurants and shops. It's already one of the few places in the country where many residents don’t rely on cars to get around: Nearly 40 percent of its households are without a vehicle, one of the highest rates nationally. “We’re trying to encourage pedestrians in every way, from zoning to traffic patterns,” says Mayor Steven Fulop.

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