Abstract
The article deals with the basic principles behind the Leuven traffic plan, the most important one being the philosophy that environmental capacity should be independent of the residential location. Motor car traffic should be reduced to human scale. We already see this in many cases (caused by roadworks, snow-drifts, street markets, narrow bridges, etc), and the innovation in the leuven plan is that these traffic restraining conditions are being "constructed" on a wider scale. Leuven aims at reducing the speed of the motor car to the level of cycle traffic. Home-based work and school trips by car should be banned from the city centre altogether and long-term parking should be confined to the centre boundaries.