Simon Wilson: How Brussels solved its car crisis

Grand-Place, Brussels. Photo / Getty Images

Brussels! It’s just like Auckland. Or it was until very recently. In the 1950s, streets were widened, trams removed and suburbs razed to make way for motorways. Everybody drove everywhere and they loved their cars.

A marketing campaign called “My car, my freedom” made it seem this was natural and wholly good. They turned the beautiful Grand-Place, the most famous square in the city, into a car park.

Directly as a result of this love-in with cars, Brussels became the most congested city in the Global North.

But that’s changed now. This city of two million has manageable traffic and the largest pedestrian-only zone in Europe, not counting Venice. What happened?

Over a few decades, they focused on public transport. More bus services, longer buses and more bus-only lanes. Modern trams and a big metro network. Priority for buses and trams at 150 traffic-light intersections.

In 2012, thousands of residents staged Picnic the Streets on Boulevard Anspach, demanding it be converted into car-free public space. In 2018 and 2019 a Green Wave of politicians won the local and regional elections, promising better walking and cycling.

Boulevard Anspach, once full of cars.

Early in 2020, the Green Wave produced a plan called Good Move, which included 50 low-traffic neighbourhoods and some local street closures. Many people thought it was ridiculous, or too ambitious, or both.

Two weeks later, though, Brussels went into lockdown. The city had been building about as much new cycleway infrastructure as Auckland, but suddenly that was increased tenfold.

Elke Van den Brandt, the city executive in charge of mobility, welcomed the debate that caused. “I think the controversy around biking was helpful,” she says. “People thought, ‘Oh, something is different, things are changing with transportation.’ And some people were seduced to ride a bike because it became safer.”

Driving was also made safer: in 2021 they reduced the general speed limit from 50km/h to 30km/h.

And in August last year they restricted vehicle access to the medieval city centre. Some streets became one-way, they added flexible bollards, used cameras to ticket cars without a permit and blocked some streets entirely. It’s been so successful, they’re rolling it out to other parts of town.

Each new step has been opposed. Shopkeepers complain about deliveries and driving away customers. Not that it actually happens. A far-right political party campaigns against the changes as loudly as it can.

The biennial Flower Carpet event in the Grand-Place, Brussels.

But it was always like this. In the early 2000s, when Mobility Minister Pascal Smet began to reduce the number of on-street car parks, he was met with outrage. Smet’s advice: “Don’t try to find consensus for everything, especially with mobility, because you will not convince everybody.”

Van den Brandt says, “It’s like quitting smoking. The beginning is hard, but after a time it gets easier — and you feel much better.”

She also says it’s important to have a good story. “If you say, ‘We want fewer cars,’ people will focus on what you’re taking away. “But if you say, ‘We want to give you XYZ,’ people get excited. I always say I need modal shift in order to create better public space.”

In 2017, cars accounted for two-thirds of kilometres travelled in the Brussels region; by 2022 it was less than half. Bike trips rose from 3 per cent in 2018 to 10 per cent in 2022. And there are fewer car crashes.