Bolivia bans cars for 'Day of the Pedestrian'

[Judi Lynn]

Source: BBC News

4 September 2011 Last updated at 20:33 ET
Bolivia bans cars for 'Day of the Pedestrian'

Cars and buses have been taken off the streets of Bolivia as the country holds its first-ever "National Day of the Pedestrian".

All motorised vehicles, including public transport, were banned in cities across the country on Sunday.

Bolivia's government says it wants to raise awareness about the environment.

It comes at a time when President Evo Morales' government is facing criticism over plans to build a highway through the Amazon rainforest.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14783305

[Renew Deal]

1. Did this include ambulances and fire trucks?

:shrug:

[rabs]

3. Some vehicular transit was allowed

Games, outdoor theater, cultural events, folklore music and dances in the streets of Bolivian cities on Sunday.

Seven hundred requests for authorization to be on the streets were granted from 1,100 requests. That would have been for emergency services, and for minibus and radio-taxi transit to the international airport. The traffic ban was from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., when streets were reopened.



Evo Morales (to the right of the man in green shirt) on a six-kilometer jog through the streets of La Paz.

------------ BBC screwup ----------

Mr Morales has faced resistance over plans to build a 185-mile wide (300km) highway through the Amazon.

---------------------
A 185-mile WIDE highway !!! :rofl:

[Renew Deal]

4. That's a lot of lanes.

:9

[No Elephants]

8. A tiny camp meeting town on the Jersey shore used to ban moving vehicles on Sunday, except

for the ambulance and the fire truck. This part is true.

One fateful Sunday, the only two vehicles operating in the town that day collided, with father driving one and son driving the other. I don't know if this part is true, or apochcryphal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_Grove,_New_Jersey

http://www.ocean-grove.com/

[Gregorian]

2. The day this happens in America will be the day I am proud to be an American.

I expect only critical replies to something so threatening to the automobile addicted society.

In 1976 my girlfriend was a Stanford student from Tehran. I was somewhat surprised when she told me that she thought Americans were car crazy. But it stuck with me. And not too many years later I got it. I sometimes wish I never had. Like seeing an inconvenient truth. Now I wait for the rest to see it. The won't. Drunks drink until they realize the need to survive, if ever.

[No Elephants]

9. How large is Iran in comparison to the United States and how long has Iran had a

workable national highway system?

Not exactly interchangeable situations.

[stockholmer]

5. if they did this in the US, I would expect 1000's of heart attack cases to flood emergency rooms

:(

[BNJMN]

7. Pedicabs. [nt]

[BNJMN]

6. That. Is. Awesome.

In fact, one of the most jaw droppingly awesome things ever.
I never thought of that. Also, did I mention,,,,,,its awesome!

[No Elephants]

10. Streets are regularly closed in Boston's North End for feasts.

And, once a year for 102 years and counting, vehicular traffic has been banned from a very busy main street on the Boston waterfront as residents and a marching band process across that street on a Thursday evening to throw flowers into the harbor at the blessing of the waters that begins the start of the Fisherman's Feast.

I've met older Italian widows whose husands actually earned their living fishing the waters of Boston Harbor before pollution killed everything in the harbor.


Warning to any who may be offended: The clip includes a prayer for the waters and the fishermen.

http://www.northendwaterfront.com/home/2011/8/20/video-2011-fishermans-feast-opening-ceremonies-and-blessing.html

(Flowers into the harbor at the end of the clip.)

(Can you tell I love Boston?)