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Car-free roads? Unthinkable in many major cities. And yet this week the concept has become reality: in the French-Canadian city of Montreal, several streets in the city centre were made free of car traffic, and if this proceeds according the wishes of the organisers, that was just the start. By Katrin Bathow

Charles, a wiry man in a red T-shirt, distributes pamphlets and beams: "The air's got better already and the noise is gone!" Next to him his Thai Chi group practices their slow exercises in the middle of the bustling Montreal shopping street, the Rue Sainte Catherine. Real turf lies in long strips on the pavement, and the only thing that's loud is the twittering of the birds coming from the speakers on the street corners that have been turned up a bit too loudly. "If only cities were always like this, it's just so calming," says Malwina who works for an animal welfare organisation and is sitting in the sun on the middle of the road. "Even the people are eating outside. Otherwise they just sit squashed together in McDonald’s". It's car-free day in Montreal, in the city centre some of the housing blocks have been locked to traffic until the early afternoon, and it's a bit like a holiday period. But to go all the way and transform the city completely into a car-free zone according to the pattern of European cities? "It's too early for that," hesitates Charles. "The people in Montreal are not mature enough yet." "The inner city is bursting at the seams, close it for cars if you can," says Malwina.

Not far from the car-free zone in the large Complexe Desjardins shopping centre and during the evening at the McGill University, German and Norwegian experts explain how car-free living in Europe is, and why even Northern climatic conditions are not convincing arguments for the dependence upon cars. Ulrike Reutter, urban planner from Dortmund, Markus Heller, architect from Berlin and the city planner Ing-Cristine Ericson from Oslo have been invited by the Goethe Institute in Montreal, the organisation that has made known the concept of car-free districts in the city. The invited experts have made possible a broadly-based discussion of the subject together with the Montreal Urban Ecology Center, one of the most important Canadian environmental organisations, and McGill University. The experts from Germany and Norway presented European concepts in various events over the period of a whole week and discussed how these could be transferred to Montreal. "Green town planning has been a focus of our work for several years, but car-free neighbourhoods is the most radical theme to be approached until now," said Mechtild Manus, director of the Goethe Institute. Montreal is situated on an island, cut away from the continent by rivers. In the morning hours the convoys enter the city via the 16 traffic bridges, and in the evenings the cars return into the surrounding country; an unstoppable process that becomes more tenacious from year to year. The road system was constructed in the 1950's and today it's welling over. The residents that barbecue on the roof terraces of their expensively renovated brickwork houses near to the Jacques Cartier bridge have a good view of the approximately 35 million cars that pass over the St. Lorenz river at this point.

Photo gallery: No Cars In Montreal

"City planning in North America until the present day means separating the place of work from the place of residence and planting new suburbs into the landscape," said Nik Luka, Professor for Architecture and City Planning at McGill University. "People come into the city to work, but live in the surrounding areas, which is why there are hardly any large apartments for families in the city. European cities are more mixed." The trendy loft apartments currently being created in the old factory buildings in Montreal's harbour might be attractive for couples who earn well, but for families they certainly aren't.

Although in Montreal's city centre there are hardly more car owners than in Berlin, and in districts such as Plateau Mont Royal and Mile End you're more likely to see bicycles than cars in front of the houses. It's not far until the car-free zones of Cologne, Amsterdam and Edinburgh, says Nik Luka. The interest in new traffic concepts exists and the movement is emerging from below. Architects and city planners have to react to this and offer new forms of living. The Bixi rented cycles are proof that the people of Montreal are open for new developments. Since last year the bikes have been distributed all over the city at stations and meet with wide acclaim. Even men in suits perch themselves on bicycle seats with briefcases and umbrellas tied to the small luggage rack in front of the handlebars.

"In Montreal it's not a question of whether we want car-free districts but how can we implement them," says Luc Rabouin, manager of the Montreal Urban Ecology Center, at the end of an all-day symposium for planners from the city of Montreal and other towns and cities in the region. The German urban planner Ulrike Reutter adds: "The right moment for car-free districts in Montreal is precisely now. Grasp the chance." On the next day the two German experts visit the workshop of a citizens' action group in order to find out how specific districts in Montreal can be designed without cars. And exactly that could happen more quickly than even Charles expects.