挪威奧斯陸市議會19日發表「2020年無車市中心」計畫，期許減少污染和碳排放。
挪威奧斯陸市中心。圖片來源：NA.dir。（CC BY-NC-ND 2.0）
就像市內應該禁菸 奧斯陸推市中心無車政策
奧斯陸居民約65萬人，車輛約35萬台，大部分車主住在市中心以外的大奧斯陸都會區，人口近一百萬。新任議會由工黨、綠黨和社會主義左翼黨組成。經歷19年的右傾市政府後，今年9月14日選舉後，奧斯陸議會出現新氣象。
新科議會表示，他們準備讓奧斯陸2020年達成溫室氣體排放減半，2030年達到減少95%。硬體建設方面，因奧斯陸市中心已經有許多的公園和綠地，將優先規劃一條貫穿市中心的地下鐵路。
儘管有些店主擔心無車政策影響生意，但議會領袖之一、綠黨首席談判官Lan Marie Nguyen Berg認為，市中心沒有車，對商店和每個人都有利，這個計畫將能嘉惠所有奧斯陸市民。「我們希望市中心沒有汽車，對行人和自行車更友善。」Berg說。
「2030年奧斯陸仍會有車輛上路，但這些車輛將會是零排放。我想幾年內，非必要的行車將會逐漸被淘汰，就像在室內抽菸的行為已逐步被遏止一樣。」Berg說。
市民可獲電動自行車補助
除市中心無車外，奧斯陸政府還會撥出一筆資金，補助市民購買電動自行車。只要法律許可，奧斯陸市就能建立低排放區。目前已規劃60公里的新自行車道和多條人行道。
然而，新議會最大的課題是奧斯陸西邊E18高速公路的擴建問題。E18高速公路經常堵塞，而新議會承諾將暫停E18的擴建計畫。
國會交通委員會領袖、保守黨國會議員Linda Hofstad Helleland認為，新議會對於E18的規劃不清不楚，並表示E18的擴建計畫不可以延後。
E18國際公路全長1890公里，從英國北愛爾蘭克雷加文開始通往俄羅斯聖彼得堡，沿途經過蘇格蘭、挪威、瑞典和芬蘭。
Oslo’s newly-elected city council today presented its plan to ban cars in the downtown city center by 2020 in an effort to reduce pollution and curb climate change.
The new council is composed of members of the Labour Party, the Green Party and the Socialist Left Party. After 19 years of a more right-leaning city government, there was a shift to the greener left in the September 14 election.
The new council will be led by Labour Party Secretary General Raymond Johansen, an Oslo resident. It includes Marianne Borgen, a former Oslo city councilor from the Socialist Left Party, and Lan Marie Nguyen Berg, chief negotiator in Oslo for the Miljøpartiet De Grønne, MDG, Norway’s Green Party.
“We want the city center free of cars,” said Berg. “We want the town center be a better area for pedestrians, cyclists.”
Berg said a car-free city center would be “a better area for shops and everyone.” She said the plan will benefit all Oslo citizens, despite fears expressed by shopkeepers that the ban would negatively affect their businesses.
Oslo has around 650,000 inhabitants and some 350,000 cars, Most car owners live outside the city center in the greater Oslo urban area, population nearly one million.
The new city council says it is taking steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Oslo by half by the year 2020 and by 95 percent in the year 2030.
The new council said today that it will prioritize a new subway tunnel through the inner city. Oslo already has a large number of parks and green areas in the city core.
In addition to making Oslo car free inside ring 1, Berg says the Oslo city government will create a fund to subsidize the purchase of electric bicycles for Oslo inhabitants.
As soon as the law permits, low emission zones in the city will be established. Sixty kilometers (40 miles) of new bicycle lanes and many pedestrian walkways are planned.
“In 2030, there will still be people who drive a car in Oslo, but they will be emission-free,” said Berg. “I think that in a few years unnecessary car use will seem as odd as it currently does to smoke inside.”
The biggest fight is sure to come over the new council’s pledge to halt the planned expansion of the often-clogged E18 highway west of Oslo.
“There is now full confusion about what this new city government in Oslo really means about the E18,” Linda Hofstad Helleland of the Conservatives, an MP who leads the Parliament’s transport committee, told Norwegian Broadcasting, NRK. “We won’t accept any further delays in the E18 expansion plan.”
European route E18 runs about 1,890 kilometers (1,174 miles) from Craigavon in Northern Ireland in the UK to Saint Petersburg, Russia, passing through Scotland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.
※ 全文及圖片詳見：ENS
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