Norway’s capital Oslo has announced dramatic measures to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, with a plan to ban cars from the CBD by 2019.
It would be the first permanent ban for a European capital.
The newly elected city council, made up of the Labor Party, the Greens and the Socialist Left, says the move will help to reduce pollution and benefit the community, although local business owners have raised concerns.
"We want to have a car-free center," Lan Marie Nguyen Berg, lead negotiator for the Green Party in Oslo, told reporters.
"We want to make it better for pedestrians, cyclists. It will be better for shops and everyone."
Public buses and trams will still be permitted, along with cars for disabled people and approved supply trucks.
With almost 350,000 cars and 600,000 people who live within Oslo’s boundaries, the city will need to introduce appealing transport alternatives.
Reuters reports that under the plans, the council will build at least 60km of bicycle lanes by 2019, the date of the next municipal elections, and provide a "massive boost" of investment in public transport.
Oslo City Council will hold consultations, study the experiences of other cities and conduct trial runs.
The announcement followed European Mobility Week 2015, where hundreds of cities and towns across Europe took part in initiatives.
The idea of a car-free CBD was trialled, albeit to a much lesser degree, in a number of European cities, including Paris. For one day, the usually hectic traffic in sections of the French capital gave way to pedestrians, giving locals a break from air and noise pollution.
The Guardian reported that the initiative resulted in such a dramatic drop in both air and noise pollution, that Mayor Anne Hidalgo has floated the idea of making the ban a regular event. “We might envisage days without cars more often … perhaps even once a month,” she wrote on Twitter.