Cities go car-free for a day

PARIS – Many European towns restricted traffic, offered cheap subway rides or lent bikes in an experiment Monday to cut air pollution – a problem that aggravated Europe’s deadly heat wave this summer.

More than 1,000 cities, most of them in Europe, took part in the sixth annual car-free day. In London, accordion players provided entertainment in streets closed to cars; in Paris, people toured electric-powered buses and tested Segway scooters.

The annual event started six years ago in France as a way to push drivers to think about air pollution and their role in creating it. This time, the problem seemed even more pressing: Bad air worsened the suffering of thousands of elderly people who died in August’s soaring temperatures.

But people had a hard time leaving their cars in the garage, and many streets were as clogged as usual.

In Paris, police blocked most cars – except for taxis and low-emission vehicles – from the city’s tourist core surrounding Notre Dame cathedral and the Louvre Museum.

Streets in the area were free of the usual angry honking. But bottlenecks were worse than most days just a few blocks away, on the wide boulevards heading to the suburbs.

The event was part of “European Mobility Week,” whose organizers say that 40 percent of the area’s carbon-dioxide emissions come from private cars in cities.

Most efforts Monday focused on encouraging people to take public transport. In Helsinki, Finland, a single ticket allowed travel on subways, buses, trams or commuter trains for the whole day. In Geneva, the usual $8 day pass was valid for a week.

In Dublin, few people switched from their cars to the Irish capital’s patchwork of buses and trains. Many griped they had seen no advertising about the day – particularly the plans to hand out free bus tickets for a few off-peak hours.

“What am I supposed to do with this? Go home and kiss the wife?” said Frankie Meehan, 42, when offered a free ticket at lunchtime.