Photos still look pretty grim, due to the car infrastructure, and the lack of foot infrastructure, but I'm guessing cars would be grimmer.

For part of the year, one "parkway" along the river here (actually used like a congested highway) is closed off to cars for part of one weekend day. Without cars, it's great with walkers, bicyclers, families. Even though there's no amenities for people on foot, it's still much nicer than the people-hostile monstrosity that's normally operating there. I can only imagine if it was a park area designed for foot&bikes, with all the businesses and such oriented around that.

But I just heard good-sounding news, about part of it (mainly next to Harvard): https://mass.streetsblog.org/2024/12/13/dcr-will-start-teari...

In Los Angeles we call it CicLAvia. It's a rolling party and riding on streets that are normally bike unfriendly is great. It's crazy the perspective difference between biking vs driving through the city. I highly recommend it.

I wonder how many of the enthusiastic participants, if the event hadn't existed yet and would be proposed now, would actually oppose it. Sometimes change is hard.

City: Bogotá

"Open": Opens its streets to cyclists, skaters, pedestrians every Sunday.

Bogotá is generally a fairly dismal city, but taking the card off some streets turns into a joyful festival...