The city will hold its largest ever Car-Free Earth Day on Saturday, April 22, officials announced Tuesday.

The one-day Open Streets event is part of the city Department of Transportation’s marking of Earth Day.

As part of the occasion, the DOT is urging New York drivers to ditch their cars on Earth Day and instead take a stroll or bike through the more than four dozen car-free streets or plazas that will be available to pedestrians.

“When you bike, it’s good for the economy. You save money,” DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodríguez said. “It’s good for the environment. And if you bike a half an hour every day, you will extend six years to your life.”

Standing in the pedestrian plaza in Times Square on a rainy Tuesday, Rodríguez announced that a record 53 streets and plazas will be car-free in the city during this year’s Earth Day.

“The majority of New Yorkers do not own a car and we do not use cars to get around,” said Kathy Park Price, coordinator for Transportation Alternatives Brooklyn. “So it’s a day to remind each other that we are a city that is majority car-free.”

The city’s Car-Free Earth Day started back in 2016, with a few streets in parts of Manhattan.

Ken Podziba, the president and CEO of Bike New York, said he participated in the first Car-Free Earth Day and since then, it has grown tremendously.

“A 57% increase over last year,” he said. “It is really for car free. And I knew it was going to grow.”

Besides the car-free streets and plazas, this spring, the DOT will host seven Earth Day events throughout the city, in addition to 46 car-free events on streets and plazas in all five boroughs, with the support of community organizations.

The events will include art, music, dance and other entertainment, which the DOT previewed during Tuesday’s announcement.

In addition to seeing a car-free Earth Day continue to grow, supporters would like to see car free streets and plazas opened to pedestrians only on more days throughout the year.

“We’ve seen people prioritized over cars and I hope that we as a city can continue to support initiatives like this,” Price said.

Many drivers are not fans of the car-free streets and insist it makes traffic worse on streets that are still open for driving. All the more reason public transit advocates suggest taking a train or bus on Earth Day.

Tuesday’s event also kicked off the DOT’s Open Streets and Public Space Programming, which transforms the city’s streets and plazas into public spaces and connects those public spaces with local organizations to offer activities to surrounding communities.