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4 ways a car-free Boulevard Anspach improves the city

18:00 02/07/2015

As of today, 29 June, Brussels officially boasts the second largest car-free pedestrian zone in Europe now that the handsome stretch between Place Fontainas and Place de Brouckere, along with many of its side streets, is now off limits to motor vehicles. Officially, only Venice has a larger car-less centre.

For over a decade plans and negotiations have been in the works to restrict cars to the city centre. The public in large part has supported the transformation, while some business owners and motorists have rejected the idea, claiming that such changes will make product deliveries more difficult and further congest already congested motorways.

Finally last year an agreement was reached on what the new car-less city centre would look like. And from the inauguration that took place Sunday, I must say, change looks good. Here are a few reasons why.

1. A prettier, healthier, cleaner capital

It follows logic and plenty of studies support the fact that getting cars off the streets improves the health of city residents. Not only does air quality rise, but you’re significantly less likely to be harmed in a traffic accident. Also, less noise pollution has been shown to lower stress levels and improve the quality of life for city dwellers. There are also less direct effects. For example, not being able to drive means residents walk more, which positively impacts health.

But health and safety isn’t everything. When you don’t have to play Frogger across a four-lane highway, you have more time to look around and smell the roses. While they don’t all smell great (I’m looking at you outdoor men’s urinal around the corner from the Ancienne Belgique), today one can certainly better take in the elegant, nineteenth-century facades that grace Boulevard Anspach from Place Fontainas to the Bourse.

2. Three months of party

To celebrate the new car-free zone, from now through 27 September all kinds of events will take place on and around the Boulevard Anspach. These include breakdancing in front of the Bourse every Wednesday, guided visits on the history of the area every Sunday and Saturdays filled with theatre, music, dance and acrobatic performance. Also, for the month of September, La Monnaie opera house will give free, open-air concerts with top musicians interpretations of famous works.

The area has also been divided into zones with plenty to do for people all of interests. For those with more active lifestyles, a sports zone  with ping-pong tables, badminton courts and petanque. You can also take part in free, public classes of sports like Tai Chi. Other zones include a play zone with a children’s playground and a wellness zone with a reading corner, places to sit and spaces for street artists. 

3. Biking will get easier

As anyone who has needed to bike through the already pedestrianized streets around the Grand Place knows, often the sole losers in a pedestrian thoroughfare are cyclists. Roads get too crowded with people on foot to move through with any ease, while surrounding roads that remain open to vehicles get more congested.

However, Brussels has taken measures to address this, planning more and better marked biking lanes through the centre that will appear as the plans for renovations are rolled out over the coming months. Designated bike lanes will more fluidly connect the Bourse with areas of Saint Catherine and the Rue de Flandre.

4. A more cohesive city centre

The fact is, the Boulevard Anspach with its four lanes of interminable traffic jams dug a gulf between two of Brussels’ most attractive neighbourhoods: the majestic grandeur of the Grand Place and the elegant avenues and tiny cobblestoned streets of the Saint Catherine. By making the boulevard car-free, we reunite these two neighbourhoods, making a city centre that feels cohesive, not torn apart by a busy, polluting highway.

This is important for Brussels. After all, it is the origin of the term brusselisation, a phenomenon in urban planning when a lack of zoning regulations and haphazard urban development finds modern buildings thrown up indiscriminately amid non-modern neighbourhoods, negatively impacting the feel and aesthetic of a city. Brussels has long struggled with this aspect of its aesthetic in attracting tourists. By being able to freely walk from the medieval town square to the city’s most charming shopping streets and cafes it enhances the experience of everyone roaming those streets, whether locals or tourists.

Photo © Sally Tipper

Written by Katy Faye Desmond

Comments

Alan Hope

As far as point 1 is concerned, the traffic is all still there, just driving round in a circle outside the pedestrian zone. I wouldn't count the health benefits just yet, not until people finally learn to give up bringing the car into the city at all. I'm not holding my breath, haha geddit?

Jun 29, 2015 21:07
larry

I agree with Alan. And if the city goes ahead with its plans to build four new parking garages within the city center, the streets outside the pedestrian zone will become even more congested.

On a side note, as beautiful as it is the Grand-Place in its current state is not medieval. The buildings date from the 15th, late 17th and 19th centuries.

Jul 10, 2015 15:23
R.Harris

Larry: 1) City Hall is most definitely a medieval building. Alan:
2) No, the traffic is NOT driving around the pedestrian zone. The through traffic has gone away. Not only the pedestrian zone but the the area around it is much much quieter.
3) When the 8 month trial period is over and the boulevards in the pedestrian zone are completely re done with, among other improvements, a sixteen fold increase in trees, you definitely won't have to hold your breath.
4) When phase one of the pedestrian zone was created forty years ago (the Grand' Place and its immediate surroundings) 3,000 people signed a petition against it, using the same arguments that are being used against phase three, and now it's unimaginable to think of the Grand' Place as the parking lot it once was. When phase two was put in place 6 years ago, the naysayers claimed all those businesses woulf suffer; actually business on the rue des Fripiers and the rue du Marché aux Herbes has never been so vibrant with a 20% increase.

Jul 15, 2015 09:56