While New York City isn't planning a car ban anytime soon, it is increasing the number of pedestrian areas, along with bike share, subway, and bus options.

Strips of land in popular areas like Times Square, Herald Square, and Madison Square Park are permanently pedestrian-only. On three Saturdays every August, hundreds of thousands of people take advantage of Summer Streets, an annual event that prohibits cars from driving on a major thoroughfare connecting Central Park to the Brooklyn Bridge, and opens roads for pedestrians.

Transportation Alternatives, based in NYC, also hopes to work with the city to create more pedestrian plazas. White said urban planners are no longer trying to optimize NYC and other places for drivers, and are instead thinking about cities differently.

"This is what everyday life could look like as if people mattered," he said. "The worst thing as an urban dweller is to be stuck with the auto as your only option."