Car free city centers – utopian politics or effective city center development?

Various measures are being implemented from 2017 to 2019 to make the city center of Oslo car free. In this paper we discuss effects and consequences of reduced car-access to the 1,5 km2 area. Some of the already introduced measures are removal of on-street parking spaces and implementing of a new driving pattern. In this paper we present findings from two surveys giving us knowledge on how reduced car accessibility affect some of the users of the city. Results from the ongoing case-study show few changes in how often and why the respondents visit the city center, still they believe the changes to result in more people using the city center. So far, we do not find modal changes on visits to the center, but we find changes in where respondents park the car when visiting the city center as well as changes in how long time they use to find a parking space. The study gives insight valuable for other cities implementing approaches to shift their mobility solutions towards more sustainable means of transport.