The streets of Bellville will go car-free – for a short while – on Sunday November 20, in the second instalment of Open Streets, in collaboration with the Greater Tygerberg Partnership.
An Open Streets Day is an opportunity for all to explore a street as a space that connects people. It suspends reality for a few hours and shows a glimpse of what the future could be.
In October last year, a section of Voortrekker Road and Kruskal Avenue was turned into a giant playground.
Open Streets is a 40-year-old global movement. It was inspired by Bogotá’s Ciclovía, the largest national recreational programme in Colombia, which turns 120km of streets into car-free space across the city every Sunday and public holiday.
More than 400 cities around the world have developed similar programmes, and Cape Town is taking the lead in running Open Streets in Africa.
Brett Herron, Mayoral committee member for transport, is eager for Open Streets “to be something that every community embraces” to allow people to “move by foot, by cycle, by skateboard, by rollerblade – or just play on the street – without cars interrupting them”.
A group of volunteers founded Open Streets Cape Town (OSCT) in 2012 to bring people together and raise awareness about the role of streets in the life of the city.
It is now a registered NPO supported by the City of Cape Town, the WWF Nedbank Green Trust, the Greater Tygerberg Partnership and the Millennium Trust.