It is a day for pedestrians in Paris:

“Parisians will be able to take back their daily living space and experience the city in a different way,” said Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who would have liked to make the entire city off-limits to vehicles on Sunday.The closure is unprecedented for the French capital and opens the entire city center to pedestrians only for one day, expanding on popular areas already off-limits to Sunday traffic like the fashionable Marais, the cobblestoned Montmartre and the hip neighborhood along Canal Saint-Martin.

Bumper-to-bumper traffic that normally clogs the city’s boulevards will be replaced by street parties, yoga classes, markets with fresh produce and — this being Paris — food tastings with top chefs…

Paris’ motor-free day is by no means a world’s first. Brussels, the traffic congestion capital of Europe, launched its first car-free Sunday 15 years ago, an example followed by Montreal, Jakarta and other cities.

The rest of the article emphasizes the pollution cars regularly bring to Paris and an upcoming climate change conference. These are important matters to address but there are also quality of life issues at well. Like many older cities, Paris has been retrofitted to accommodate cars and vehicles but what can be done is limited. Central Paris is a place for pedestrians, even after Haussmann’s changes, for both locals and tourists. The congestion tax in central London is an adaptation to a similar setting.

All together, I’m interested in what happens after this car-free day happens: do people find that they like this more than they thought? Why not regular car-free Sundays and then perhaps additional days as well? Yes, this could help bring down pollution levels but it could also make the central city a more pleasant place. Given the spread of such days in major cities throughout the world, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more such days in Paris.