Greenhouse gases, smog, pollution, and traffic jams. What do all of these have in common? They all come from vehicles. In many countries, they're changing that. Countries such as Colombia, France, Germany, and even America are limiting car usage. The affects of these countries going nearly car-free are quite helpful and convienient. Some of the advantages of this are that citizens get more exercise, less polution as well as less gasoline used, and traffic jams are prevented.

Exercise, being one of the factors that's lacking when people drive everywhere, can be changed just by simply choosing to walk, run, bike, skate, etc. instead. That's just what many people are doing. Vauban, Germany has a new approach for transportation. Rather than driving to stores along highways that are quite distant from neighborhoods, stores are placed closer on a main street that's within walking distance. Also in Colombia, "Parks and sports centers also have bloomed throughout the city"(Andrew Selsky, paragraph 28).

Pollution is one of the biggest problems on Earth thanks to cars. In Paris, a partial driving ban was enforced so that every other day either even or odd-numbered license plates would not be permitted to leave home with their cars. While in Bogota, Colombia, for a few years there's been a day without them completely. Other than buses and taxis of course. This annual day "has seen the construction of 118 miles of bicycle paths"(Andrew Selsky), which helps with the exercise factor as well as lessoning the pollution and traffic jams due to driving. Americans have also been saving money by not even buying a car to begin with. The number of people with liscenses and cars has definetly dropped over the years.

From getting more exercise to reducing pollution, going without a car definetly has it's advantages. Thanks to bills, bans, and laws, the dependency of the car has gone down as well. So, will Earth one day be car-free?