Pedestrian zone

Pedestrian zones (also known as auto-free zones and car-free zones, and as pedestrian precincts in British English ) are areas of a city or town reserved for pedestrian only use and in which some or all automobile traffic may be prohibited. They are instituted by communities who feel that it is desirable to have pedestrian-only areas. Converting a street or an area to pedestrian-only use is called pedestrianisation.

Pedestrian zones have a great variety of attitudes or rules towards 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 of Middle Eastern casbas have no wheeled traffic, but use donkey-driven or hand-driven carts for freight transport.

Towns in many low-income countries are effectively largely pedestrian only simply because cars are uncommon in those countries.