Segways, travelators and very, very green: What a car free London could look like
Londoners believe the capital will be the first major city to go car free – and futurists believe that’ll herald a whole new urban aesthetic.
A survey of 2,000 people found that Brits think we’ll see the first car-less city as soon as 2050, and that
the UK will beat the likes of China, Saudi Arabia and Europe to it. London ranked as the most likely city in
the world to go car-less, followed by Amsterdam, Tokyo, Copenhagen and Beijing.
More than half expect bikes and e-bikes to replace cars whilst more than one in ten think a car-free future would have Londoners finally making segways cool.
Swapfiets, the subscription bike and e-bike service which commissioned the survey, commissioned an AI artist and futurist Dan Sodergren to envisage what the city of the future might look like.
Current mayor Sadiq Khan, who has brought in the ultra low emission zone across London, would be pleased to know a car-free city could save around 1.5m tonnes of CO2 annually.
Brits think car-less cities will be much more liveable when asked how they think they will look. There will
be less roads but more green spaces and trees (41%), more cycling and pedestrianised zones (40%) and
lots more street dining (24%). Brits would also expect to see new landmarks, more commemorative
statues and more sporting facilities.
Amanda Gandolpho, Swapfiets Brand Director, said: We hope that the pictures inspire people to visualise how more liveable cities will look once they are less congested, with cleaner air, and healthier people and the shift to cycling is a big contributor to that.