Why urban streets around the world are going car-free

Cities around the world are proposing to replace the space taken up by parked cars with usable areas for people.

Personal cars sit parked about 95% of the time, according to a study by the RAC Foundation. And they take up valuable real estate in urban areas. Roads and parking occupy nearly a quarter of Manhattan, for example, while only 22% of households in the borough owns a car, according to census data.

Cars were banned on a stretch of…