Cars Banned From Paris Streets for the Day

The streets of Paris were free Sunday from their typical brutal traffic thanks to a car-free day in much of the region declared by the city’s mayor. The policy allowed Parisians to roam the streets and participate in street fairs.

The car-free day comes as the city wrestles with an air pollution problem that has led the city to experiment with a number of policies to clean up the air, including turning policies to make the city more friendly for pedestrians and cyclists.

The car-free day also comes in the lead up to a conference in the city this fall on climate change. Tens of thousands of diplomats, business people and climate change experts will gather in the city as United Nations delegates work to broker a binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.