Қалалық автомобильсіз аймақтар және жаяу жүргіншілер жолдары

Urban car free area reserved for pedestrian use
parts of urban areas without cars

Pedestrian zones (also known as auto free zones and car free zones, as pedestrian precincts in British English, and as pedestrian malls in the United States and Australia) are areas of a city or town restricted to use by people on foot or human powered transport such as bicycles, with non emergency motor traffic not allowed. Converting a street or an area to pedestrian only use is called pedestrianisation. Pedestrianisation usually aims to provide better accessibility and mobility for pedestrians, to enhance the amount of shopping and other business activities in the area or to improve the attractiveness of the local environment in terms of aesthetics, air pollution, noise and crashes involving motor vehicle with pedestrians. In some cases, motor traffic in surrounding areas increases, as it is displaced rather than replaced. A car free development generally implies a large scale pedestrianised area that relies on modes of transport other than the car, while pedestrian zones may vary in size from a single square to entire districts, but with highly variable degrees of dependence on cars for their broader transport links. Pedestrian zones have a great variety of approaches to human powered vehicles such as bicycles, inline skates, skateboards and kick scooters. Some have a total ban on anything with wheels, others ban certain categories, others segregate the human powered wheels from foot traffic, and others still have no rules at all. Many Middle Eastern kasbahs have no motorized traffic, but use donkey or hand carts to carry goods.

The idea of separating pedestrians from wheeled traffic is an old one, dating back at least to the Renaissance. Separated shopping arcades were constructed throughout Europe in the 19th century, precursors of modern shopping malls. A number of architects and city planners, including Joseph Paxton, Ebenezer Howard, and Clarence Stein, in the 19th and early 20th centuries proposed plans to separate pedestrians from traffic in various new developments.

The first "pedestrianisation" of an existing street seems to have taken place "around 1929" in Essen, Germany. This was in Limbecker Straße, a very narrow shopping street that could not accommodate both vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Two other German cities followed this model in the early 1930s, but the idea was not seen outside Germany.

In the United States, several pedestrian zones in major tourist areas were successful, such as the renovation of the mall in Santa Monica on Los Angeles' Westside and its relaunch as the Third Street Promenade; the creation of the covered, pedestrian Fremont Street Experience in Downtown Las Vegas; the revival of East 4th Street in Downtown Cleveland; and the new pedestrian zone created in the mid 2010s in New York City including along Broadway (the street) and around Times Square.

During the COVID 19 pandemic in 2020, some cities had made the pedestrianization of additional streets to encourage social distancing and in many cases to provide extra rooms for restaurants to serve food on patios extended into the newly available spaces. In the United States, New York City closed up to of streets to cars across the city. In Madrid, Spain, the city pedestrianized of streets and of spaces in total. The COVID 19 pandemic gave also birth to proposals for radical change in the organisation of the city, in particular Barcelona, being the pedestrianisation of the whole city one of the key elements, proposing an inversion of the concept of sidewalk.

A pedestrian zone is often limited in scope: for example, a single square or a few streets reserved for pedestrians, within a city where residents still largely get around in cars. A car free town, city or region may be much larger.

A car free zone is different from a typical pedestrian zone, in that it implies a development largely predicated on modes of transport other than the car.

The more common form of carfree development involves some sort of physical barrier, which prevents motor vehicles from penetrating into a car free interior. Melia et al. describe this as the "limited access" type. In some cases, such as Stellwerk 60 in Cologne, there is a removable barrier, controlled by a residents' organisation. In Amsterdam, Waterwijk is a 6 hectare neighborhood where cars may only access parking areas from the streets that form the edges of the neighborhood; all of the inner areas of the neighborhood are car free.

Many cities close certain streets to automobiles, typically on weekends and especially in warm weather, to provide more urban space for recreation, and to increase foot traffic to nearby businesses. Examples include Newbury Street in Boston, and Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts (which is along a river). In some cases, popularity has resulted in streets being permanently closed to cars, including JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; Griffith Drive in Griffith Park, Los Angeles; and Capel Street in Dublin.

There were calls for traffic to be reinstated in Trafalgar Square, London, after pedestrianization caused noise nuisance for visitors to the National Gallery. The director of the gallery is reported to have blamed pedestrianization for the "trashing of a civic space". Local shopkeepers may be critical of the effect of pedestrianization on their businesses. Reduced through traffic can lead to fewer customers using local businesses, depending on the environment and the area's dependence on the through traffic.

A large number of European towns and cities have made part of their centres car free since the early 1960s. These are often accompanied by car parks on the edge of the pedestrianised zone, and, in the larger cases, park and ride schemes.

Northern Avenue, located in the Kentron district of central Yerevan, is a large pedestrian avenue. The avenue was inaugurated in 2007 and is mainly home to residential buildings, offices, luxury shops and restaurants.

In Belgium, Brussels implemented Europe's largest pedestrian zone (French: Le Piétonnier), in phases starting in 2015 and will cover The area covers much of the historic center within the Small Ring (the ring road built on the site of the 14th century walls), including the Grand Place/Grote Markt, the Place de Brouckère/De Brouckèreplein, the Boulevard Anspach/Anspachlaan, and the Place de la Bourse/Beursplein.

Central Copenhagen is one of the oldest and largest: it was converted from car traffic into a pedestrian zone in 1962 as an experiment, and is centered on Strøget, which is not a single street but a series of interconnected avenues which create a very large pedestrian zone, although it is crossed in places by streets with vehicular traffic. Most of these zones allow delivery trucks to service the businesses there during the early morning, and street cleaning vehicles will usually go through these streets after most shops have closed for the night. It has grown in size from in 1962 to in 1996.

A number of German islands ban or strictly limit the private use of motor vehicles. Heligoland, Hiddensee, and all but two of the East Frisian islands are car free; Borkum and Norderney have car free zones and strictly limit automobile use during the summer season and in certain areas, also forbidding travel at night. Some areas provide exceptions for police and emergency vehicles; Heligoland also bans bicycles. In the early 1980s, the Alternative Liste für Demokratie und Umweltschutz (which later became part of Alliance 90/The Greens) unsuccessfully campaigned to make West Berlin a car free zone.

In the Netherlands, the inner city of Arnhem has a pedestrian zone (voetgangersgebied) within the boundaries of the following streets and squares: Nieuwe Plein, Willemsplein, Gele Rijdersplein, Looierstraat, Velperbinnensingel, Koningsplein, St. Catharinaplaats, Beekstraat, Walburgstraat, Turfstraat, Kleine Oord, and Nieuwe Oeverstraat. Rotterdam's city center was almost completely destroyed by German bombing in May 1940. The Lijnbaan served as a model for many other such streets in the early post World War II era, such as Warsaw, Prague, Hamburg, and the UK's first pedestrianised shopping precinct in Stevenage in 1959. Three exceptions to motor vehicles could apply to specific sections of these three zones, namely: "logistics allowed within window times (5 to 10:30 a. m)", "logistics allowed 24/7", and "commercial traffic allowed during market days". Early post 1945 new towns carried on the tradition of providing some traffic free shopping streets. However, in the conversion of traditional shopping streets to pedestrian precincts, Britain started only in 1967 (versus Germany's first conversion in 1929, or the first in the U. S. in 1959). Since then growth was rapid, such that by 1980 a study found that most British towns and cities had a pedestrian shopping precinct; 1,304 in total.

In Istanbul, İstiklal Caddesi is a pedestrian street (except for a historic streetcar that runs along it) and a major tourist draw.

Some Canadian examples are the Sparks Street Mall area of Ottawa, the Distillery District in Toronto, Scarth Street Mall in Regina, Stephen Avenue Mall in Calgary (with certain areas open to parking for permit holders) and part of Prince Arthur Street and the Gay Village in Montreal. Algonquin and Ward's Islands, parts of the Toronto Islands group, are also car free zones for all 700 residents. Since summer 2004, Toronto has also been experimenting with "Pedestrian Sundays" in its busy Kensington Market. Granville Mall in Halifax, Nova Scotia was a run down section of buildings on Granville Street built in the 1840s that was restored in the late 1970s. The area was then closed off to vehicles.

Mackinac Island, between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, banned horseless carriages in 1896, making it auto free. The original ban still stands, except for emergency vehicles. Travel on the island is largely by foot, bicycle, or horse drawn carriage. An 8 mile (13 km) road, M 185 rings the island, and numerous roads cover the interior. M 185 is the only highway in the United States without motorized vehicles. Fire Island in Suffolk County, New York is pedestrianised east of the Fire Island Lighthouse and west of Smith Point County Park (with the exception of emergency vehicles). Supai, Arizona, located within the Havasupai Indian Reservation is entirely car free, the only community in the United States where mail is still carried out by mule. Supai is located eight miles from the nearest road, and is accessible only by foot, horse/mule, or helicopter. Culdesac Tempe, a 17 acre (0.069 square kilometers) car free district in Tempe, Arizona, is intended to be the nation's first market rate rental apartment district to ban its tenants from owning cars. Bikes and emergency vehicles are allowed. It has received significant investments from executives at Lyft and Opendoor.

Argentina's big cities, Córdoba, Mendoza and Rosario, have lively pedestrianised street centers (lang es) combined with town squares and parks which are crowded with people walking at every hour of the day and night. In Buenos Aires, some stretches of Calle Florida have been pedestrianised since 1913, which makes it one of the oldest car free thoroughfares in the world today. Pedestrianised Florida, Lavalle and other streets contribute to a vibrant shopping and restaurant scene where street performers and tango dancers abound, streets are crossed with vehicular traffic at chamfered corners.

Paquetá Island in Rio de Janeiro is auto free. The only cars allowed on the island are police and ambulance vehicles. In Rio de Janeiro, the roads beside the beaches are auto free on Sundays and holidays. Downtown Rio de Janeiro, Ouvidor Street, over almost its entire length, has been continually a pedestrian space since the mid nineteenth century when not even carts or carriages were allowed. And the Saara District, also downtown, consists of some dozen or more blocks of colonial streets, off limits to cars, and crowded with daytime shoppers. Likewise, many of the city's hillside favelas are effectively pedestrian zones as the streets are too narrow and/or steep for automobiles. Eixo Rodoviário, in Brasília, which is 13 kilometers long and 30 meters wide and is an arterial road connecting the center of that city from both southward and northward wings of Brasília, perpendicular to the well known Eixo Monumental (Monumental Axis in English), is auto free on Sundays and holidays. Rua XV de Novembro (15 November Street) in Curitiba is one of the first major pedestrian streets in Brazil.

Chile has many large pedestrian streets. An example is Paseo Ahumada and Paseo Estado in Santiago, Paseo Barros Arana in Concepción and Calle Valparaíso in Viña del Mar.

During his 1998–2001 term, the former Bogotá mayor, U. S. born Enrique Peñalosa, created several pedestrian streets, plazas and bike paths integrated with a new bus rapid transit system. The historic center of Cartagena closes some streets to cars during certain hours. In downtown Armenia, Colombia there is a large pedestrian street where several boutiques are located. Santa Marta also has permanent pedestrian zones in the historic center around the Cathedral Basílica of Santa Marta.

The Historic center of Mexico City has 12 pedestrian streets including Madero Street, and as of 30 June 2020, is expanding the number to 42 pedestrian streets. Génova is a busy pedestrian street in the Zona Rosa as is Plaza Garibaldi downtown, where mariachis play. The old city of Guanajuato is largely pedestrian. The steep and/or narrow side streets were never accessible by cars and most other streets were pedestrianized in the 1960s after through traffic was moved to a system of former flood control tunnels that was no longer necessary due to a new dam. Playa del Carmen has a pedestrian mall, Quinta Avenida, ("Fifth Avenue") that stretches and receives 4 million visitors annually with hundreds of shops and restaurants.

Jirón de La Unión in Lima is a traditional pedestrian street located in the Historic Centre of Lima, part of the capital of Peru. In the city of Arequipa, Mercaderes is also a considerably large pedestrian street. Also, recently three of the four streets surrounding the city's main square or "Plaza de Armas" were also made pedestrian.

Nanjing Road in Shanghai is perhaps the most well known pedestrian zone in mainland China. Wangfujing is a famous tourist and retail oriented pedestrian zone in Beijing. Chunxilu in Chengdu is the most well known in western China. Dongmen is the busiest business zone in Shenzhen. Zhongyang Street is a historical large pedestrian street in Harbin.

In Hong Kong, since 2000, the government has been implementing full time or part time pedestrian streets in a number of areas, including Causeway Bay, Central, Wan Chai, Mong Kok, and Tsim Sha Tsui. The most popular pedestrian street is Sai Yeung Choi Street. It was converted into a pedestrian street in 2003. From December 2008 to May 2009, there were three acid attacks during which corrosive liquids were placed in plastic bottles and thrown from the roof of apartments down onto the street.

Pedestrian zones in Japan are called hokōsha tengoku (歩行者天国, literally "pedestrian heaven"). Clis Road, in Sendai, Japan, is a covered pedestrian mall, as is Hondōri in Hiroshima. Several major streets in Tokyo are closed to vehicles during weekends. One particular temporary hokōsha tengoku in Akihabara was cancelled after the Akihabara massacre in which a man rammed a truck into the pedestrian traffic and subsequently stabbed more than 12 people.

Insadong in Seoul, South Korea has a large pedestrian zone (Insadong gil) during certain hours. Also in South Korea, in 2013, in the Haenggun dong neighbourhood of Suwon, streets were closed to cars as a month long car free experiment while the city hosted the EcoMobility World Festival. Instead of cars, residents used non motorized vehicles provided by the festival organizers. The experiment was not unopposed; however, on balance it was considered a success. Following the festival, the city embarked on discussions about adopting the practice on a permanent basis.

Ximending in Taipei, Taiwan is a neighbourhood and shopping district in the Wanhua District of Taipei, Taiwan. It was the first pedestrian zone in Taiwan. The district is very popular in Taiwan. In central Taiwan, Yizhong Street is one of the most popular pedestrian shopping area in Taichung. In Southern Taiwan, the most famous pedestrian shopping area is Shinkuchan in Kaohsiung.

In Thailand, some small streets (soi) in Bangkok are designed to be all time closed to automobile traffic, the city's famous shopping streets of Sampheng Lane in Chinatown and Wang Lang Market nearby to Siriraj Hospital, are the most popular for both local and tourists shopping streets. Additionally the city has built long skywalk systems. Walking Street, Pattaya is also closed to auto traffic. Night markets are routinely closed to auto traffic.

Huế in Vietnam has made 3 roads into pedestrians only on weekend nights. Also, Hanoi has opened an Old Quarter Walking Street on weekend nights. Ho Chi Minh City also changed Nguyễn Huệ street into pedestrian zone.

North Africa contains some of the largest auto free areas in the world. Fes al Bali, a medina of Fes, Morocco, with its population of 156,000, may be the world's largest contiguous completely carfree area, and the medinas of Cairo, Tunis, Casablanca, Meknes, Essaouira, and Tangier are quite extensive. In Israel, Tel Aviv has a pedestrian mall, near Nahalat Binyamin Street. Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem is a pedestrian mall.