A breath of fresh air: How Kigali’s car-free Sundays keep people moving

Source: Global NCD Alliance Forum.

• Twice a month the streets of Kigali, Rwanda go car-free. More than 10 000 people head out on car-free Sundays to walk, cycle, dance and skate — and get their blood sugar and blood pressure checked.
• The city’s car-free day is going into its ninth year, far outlasting most short-lived initiatives like it around the world, including South Africa.
• Experts say the success of Kigali’s car-free day comes down to political will, including the commitment of city officials, to make it work.

But from 7am to 10am two Sundays every month, there isn’t a single car in sight. That’s when the streets of Kigali go car-free. But the roads will still be busy. City officials estimate that 10,000 people come out for those Sundays, getting on bicycles, strapping on skates, hopping on skateboards or slipping into tackies.

For the last two years, Remy Ishimwe, 24, has jogged with friends every car-free Sunday.

“It’s a breath of fresh air having no cars on the roads,” he says as a group of joggers passes, ululating and singing, this past Sunday.

Public health officials say the project — which has been going on for the past nine years — is an attempt to keep the air, and those who live in the city, healthier.

“From the beginning, it was a win-win collaborative initiative to help make Kigali green, improve air quality and promote physical activity,” says Joseph Mucumbitsi, chairperson of the Rwanda NCD Alliance at the NCD Alliance Global Forum, a global public health conference which was held in Kigali last week. “It’s a good example of how you can bring together prevention and early detection for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as heart and lung disease, physical activity and clean air.”

Getting people moving

Every year cities around the world, from Jinja in Uganda to Vancouver in Canada, celebrate car-free days.

Projects like this, which includes international Car-Free Day, can help solve a worldwide problem. Nearly 1.8-billion people (a third of all adults worldwide) don’t get enough physical activity to keep them healthy, putting them at risk of developing conditions like type 2 diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers. It can also help lower air pollution from vehicles, which contributes to climate change and health problems, such as strokes, cancer and asthma.

“They’re a powerful way to change the behaviour and mindsets of citizens and policymakers by showing them what cities without traffic, noise or air pollution can look like,” says Carly Gilbert-Patrick, who leads the active mobility team in the sustainable mobility unit at the United Nations Environment Programme.

‘Local government buy-in is key’

In South Africa, Cape Town has also been experimenting with car-free Sundays for the past few months. With help from the city’s urban mobility directorate, the nonprofit Young Urbanists South Africa closes off Bree Street to traffic from 10am to 5pm.

The experiment, which started in October and will end in March, draws about 1,000 people every week, according to Roland Postma, managing director of Young Urbanists. He says the project also has a healthy living element. With the help of artificial intelligence cameras, they measure the speed of people walking and cycling.

Mayoral committee member for urban mobility Rob Quintas says the city hopes to build on the experiment and help other parts of the city to organise similar days on their local streets.

But it won’t be easy.

In 2015, some streets in Sandton went car-free. At the time, the City of Johannesburg estimated that 120,000 commuters and 75,000 cars crammed through the district. The project brought down the number of cars on four main roads leading into Sandton by 8% compared to two years before the event, which can help lower air pollution in the area. But studies have also found that car-free days aren’t the only answer to clearing the air — it can just shift traffic and air pollution to another part of the city.

Reginald Kgwedi, transport economist and founder of the Transport and Logistics Students Association, a networking platform that connects transport and logistics students, says part of the problem is that there isn’t public transport infrastructure to support non-motorised transport like walking and cycling.

And South Africans love their cars.

“The culture here is that we drive from home to work and to the shops because there aren’t safe and reliable alternatives in the form of public transport,” he says.

And safety, especially in Johannesburg is an issue when you tell people to walk the streets. “Is it safe in terms of crime and the accidents that can happen?”

But the bigger issue is that projects like the Sandton car-free month, aren’t a priority for the government making their solutions short-lived. “There are grants that local governments can apply for to implement such projects but there is no political will.”

Ariella Rojhani, director of the partnership for healthy cities at Vital Strategies, an international public health nonprofit that works with cities around the world to roll out projects like car-free days, says that it isn’t just a South African problem — local government buy-in is key.

“You have to engage local governments,” Rojhani says. “Mayors themselves are policy leaders and they have jurisdictions that maybe even national governments don’t.”

Hands-on health

Kigali has had the buy-in from city officials from the start. It started in 2016 with a once-a-month event and has spread to streets in four districts across the city; a few other cities around the country have also started their own car-free days.

On car-free Sundays, coaches lead warm-up sessions and residents kick around soccer balls or play table tennis in the streets. The health ministry takes an even more hands-on approach to improving residents’ health.

“We have screenings for high blood pressure and blood sugar,” says Francois Uwinkindi, division manager for NCDs at the Rwanda Biomedical Centre. “We’re also seeing other programmes like education campaigns on other health issues here, like HIV prevention and self-breast examinations for cancer.”

Between 2016 and 2020, nearly 50,000 people were screened for NCDs. Nearly a quarter of those tested had high blood pressure, 10% had high blood sugar and 11% were obese.

But the screening process still needs to be improved, says Uwinkindi. Some people are screened more often than they need to be, while some of those who are at risk don’t go for treatment.

“We tell them to go to their nearest health facility for confirmation and they can then get on treatment, but we don’t have a system to track the movement of them and that’s something we need to come up with a strategy to evaluate.”

Ishimwe had his weight and blood pressure checked a few times. He knows he’s healthy.

“It’s good for the health of the citizens,” he said before rejoining the crowd. “You see how everyone is so excited to run?”