Oslo plans for car free downtown. It would be Europe's first major city to ban cars. Pictured is an Oslo 'Bysykkel' (city bike) station that allows people to rent a bike for up to three hours between 6 a.m. and midnight. Image: Wikipedia Commons

It's becoming more and more common to read about cities adding more bike lanes. L.A. is not only planning on adding hundreds of miles of new bicycle lanes, but also adding bus lanes and cutting car lanes (Mobility Plan 2035).

Other cities are putting restrictions on vehicular traffic. On June, 18, 2015, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Central Park drives north of 72 Street would be permanently car-free beginning June 29, although the four east-west roads that traverse Central Park will remain open to traffic.

Oslo, Norway has even more ambitious plans. The Norwegian capital city is going to add 40 more miles of bike lanes downtown, with plans to do away with cars downtown altogether. Of course to put things in perspective, Oslo (pop. 618,683) is tiny compared to L.A. and NYC, and its downtown area only has 1,000 residents.

A survey taken in Norway last year revealed that a quarter of the population commute either on foot or by bicycle; and in Oslo, 83 percent of the inhabitants have "very good" access to public transportation.

Oslo plans to continue to invest in public transportation, and give incentives for people to purchase electric bicycles. The proposed ban on cars in downtown Oslo is coupled with a goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 50 percent of 1990 levels over the next five years.