I'm really coming around to the idea of car-free Sundays. Even from something like 5-11 am I think a lot of places would really benefit from that. This Sunday

I'm really coming around to the idea of car-free Sundays. Even from something like 5-11 am I think a lot of places would really benefit from that. This Sunday I participated in marathon/half marathon and it was great to see the streets empty except for runners, occasional cyclists taking advantage of the closed streets and lots of pedestrians watching the crowd but also filling the cafes everywhere. You specifically mentioned Australia - while Melbourne is flat and cool, both Sydney and Brisbane are hilly and hot for half the year. The country also has insane helmet laws, so that even the bike-sharing programs are essentially unused simply because you have to wear a helmet or face a fine. So the bikes sit in the sun and rain and virtually never get used. Removing the helmet laws for adults would go a long way to higher adoption in the dutch model. But 'safety' laws are hard to ratchet back, given all the effort that went into telling people they couldn't be trusted with their own judgement in the first place.