Brussels will funnel cars out of the city centre to make way for people

People’s usual routes to home or work will probably change, but so will the air quality and the noise levels

Today, the new mobility plan for the Brussels city centre enters into force. It is also known as ‘The Pentagon’, due to its characteristic shape. The plan itself will focus on redesigning the flow of traffic in a way that helps transit drivers go out of the centre and boosts the quality of life in local residential areas and public spaces.

Brussels Alderman for Mobility, Bart Dhondt, went on social media to celebrate the new traffic plan, urging citizens to come to the city centre and “sniff the clean air”.

According to a statement by the City of Brussels, the new traffic plan will come into force today, and the result should be a safer city for all travellers – pedestrians, cyclists or car drivers.

Additionally, to help smoothen the transition, authorities have also developed two digital tools, that will help everyday citizens. One is a subscription parking system for bikes, while the other is a digital traffic plan that can help guide drivers, pedestrians and cyclists along the safest and fastest routes through the city centre.

Brussels citizens’ daily routes will change

Although the plan falls short of banning motor vehicles in the city centre altogether, according to local authorities, it would still help to improve air quality, noise levels and traffic in the city. One important note is that the plan should help foster what mobility experts call an ‘evaporation effect’.

This means that when an area becomes harder to access by car, instead of moving elsewhere, traffic tends to ‘evaporate’, while people switch to different modes of transportation. Additionally, one of the main goals of the plan is to push traffic out of the city centre and more towards the circular boulevard and urban freeway surrounding the pentagon.

Furthermore, the new mobility plan is part of Brussels’ Good Move initiative, which aims to reduce car traffic in the Belgian capital by 24% by 2030. According to an official statement, local authorities say that people’s routes home or to work will change.

However, they point out that their neighbourhoods will also become much quieter and cleaner, due to the reduced traffic.