A carfree city is a population center that relies primarily on public transport, walking, or cycling for transport within the urban area. Carfree cities greatly reduce petroleum dependency, air pollution, greenhouse emissions, automobile crashes, noise pollution, and traffic congestion. Some cities have one or more districts where motorized vehicles are prohibited, referred to as carfree zones, districts or areas. Many older cities in Europe, Asia, and Africa evolved long before the advent of the automobile, and some continue to have carfree areas in the oldest parts of the city.
The goal of the Carfree Cities movement is to bring together people from around the world who are promoting practical alternatives to car dependence— walking, cycling, and public transport. The movement seeks ultimately to transform cities, towns, and villages into human-scaled environments rich in public space and community life.
Such transformation is occurring in existing city areas by strategic closures of streets to car traffic and by opening streets and squares to exclusive pedestrian use. A pedestrian and bicycle network gradually emerges and joins several parts of the city. Similarly, prompted by the same need to avoid conflicts with car traffic and enhance pedestrian movement, pedestrian networks have emerged below grade (Underground City) or above road-level to connect large downtown areas. For new areas on the fringe of cities or new towns, two new complementary ideas have recently emerged. The concept of Filtered Permeability (2007) and a model for planning towns and subdivisions - the Fused Grid (2003). Both focus on shifting the balance of network design in favour of pedestrian and bicycle mobility.
The city of Venice in Italy serves as a example of how a modern city can function without cars. This design was unintentional as the city was founded over 1,500 years ago, a long time before the invention of the automobile. Visitors who drive to the city or residents who own a car must park their car in a carpark outside of the city and then proceed either by foot or train into the city. The predominant method of transportation in the city is by foot, however most residents travel by motorised waterbuses (vaporetti) which travel the city's canals.
It's not impossible to imaging a modern planned community being designed around lessons learnt from Venice being founded in the United States or another country. The waterways could instead be replaced by a network of trains or monorails (both which could be elevated above, below, or alongside pedestrian streets). Rather than wide plain paved roads, pedestrian streets could be of varying size, decorated with gardens, tree boxes, benches, and shopping stalls, and intersections could be turned into public plazas for the local community.
A theoretical design for a carfree city of one million people was first proposed by J.H. Crawford in 1996 and further refined in his book, Carfree Cities (2000).