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"We Love Car-Free School-Streets!"

Until We Have to Make Them a Reality.

A “School Street” in Paris’s 8th arrondissement; one of nearly 200 “Rue aux écoles,” closed to cars

Until We Have to Make Them a Reality.

// It’s easy to get people to agree that our cities would be less polluted, more pleasant, and safer—for the elderly, for kids, for everyone—if we relied less on cars.

It’s equally easy to get them to acknowledge that we should be encouraging children to get more exercise by walking or riding their bicycles to school.

What’s hard—really hard—is to get anybody to do anything concrete about it. When it comes to removing parking, or closing streets to cars, lofty statements of good intentions too often vanish into the (increasingly smog- and smoke-filled) air.

That’s the experience I’m having with my children’s public elementary school in Canada’s second largest city. Montreal’s mayor is Valerie Plante, whose party Projet Montréal has done a lot to close streets to traffic, green alleys, and expand pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. (I argue in this dispatch that they’ve fallen short on the transit file, especially given their role in killing the REM de l’Est, which would have provided a crucial light-metro route to the city’s east end.) Last week, just in time for la rentrée (back-to-school) Plante announced $10 million for making the streets around schools safer.

I should be rejoicing. But I’m not. Here’s why.

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