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Europe Plans To Ban Petrol Cars From Cities By 2050
thecarchik writes "Can you imagine a future — thirty-nine years from now — where there are no engines humming, no exhaust smells, no car sounds of any kind in the city except the presumably Jetsons-like beeping of EVs? The European Commission can, and it has a transportation proposal aiming to do just that by 2050. Paris was the first city to suggest a ban on gas guzzlers in their city core, but this ban takes it to whole different level by planning to phase out all petrol cars completely from the city streets. While Paris was motivated by reduced pollution, the EU has broader aims of reduced foreign oil dependence, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, increased jobs within the EU, and improved infrastructure for future economic growth."
If we are truly at peak oil petrol will probably be too expensive by then to use in the average vehicle by then anyway.
39 years away is a LONG time. Many politicians will have a chance to overturn this during that time.
Or if you're an optimist, perhaps the free market will have beat them to the punch by then. Or you might point out that there already is a modern city without petrol cars.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Because some countries (the UK) will probably just be one huge city by 2050.
Might be worth nothing that the UK has already rejected this idea.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
The Soviets had so much success with their five-year plans.
We're going to try and better them with our 40-year plans!
Petrol is already massively taxed, paying for public transportation and road upkeep. That's why prices for petrol are considerably higher than in the US even in a country like Norway that has its own oil resources.
The UK government has already said they don't like the plan. From the BBC UK rejects EU call for city centre ban on petrol cars:
It's certainly an interesting idea. And it seems, using the example of London's congestion charge, that it wouldn't be a bad thing. I certainly encourage more people to use public transport, and ride bikes.
And for the Yanks who will complain they live in the suburbs, maybe lobby your local government for better public transport? And stop complaining, this is an article from Europe.
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In forty years, the world will be almost entirely identical to this one. In 1960, the world expected flying cars and jetpacks and bases on the moon and mars by 2000 and other than the internet, the world of 2000 was pretty much the world of 1960. The world of 2050 is going to pretty much be the world of 2011.
We already do tax petrol very heavily.
which is totally what she said
It's easier to replace 2 coal power plants than 100k privately owned cars.
Where do all these electric cars get their power from? It's okay to pollute wherever the power plants are built, just as long as it's not in the city limits, eh?
If people insist on polluting, then having the pollution in one place, away from large numbers of people, where it can be more easily managed (reduced), sounds good to me.
I wish the West End, City and East End of London would be pedestrianised.
I have to admit, I'm struggling to understand what exactly defies physics about banning petrol cars or even economics for that matter with the growing costs of oil and the decreasing volumes of it available on the planet.
"Europe should spend money on basic research, experimenting with new ideas and taxing petrol if different forms of transportation are desired."
Yeah, it does all that too.
Where do all these electric cars get their power from? It's okay to pollute wherever the power plants are built, just as long as it's not in the city limits, eh?
It isn't China or the States. There is MUCH more green and nuclear energy in the Europe.
The EU area controls about 16% of the total world economy. That may sound small, but when an area like that takes a considered and coordinated stance like the one in the OP, and (knowing EU) is prepared to put significant legislative effort behind the decision, it would have a significant impact. 16% of the world market is too much to ignore, even discounting the manufacturers actually living in the EU area (for you foreign barbarians, about 500 million people lives here).
A decision like this would cause great market incitement for thinking up and selling new "green" products.
You are short and narrow sighted. Europe doesn't make a decision like this just because of what they expect to change, but because of what they expect to have. By 2050 a lot of projects concerning green energy will have bore fruit and it won't be the same concern as it is today. You're only seeing 2050, while stuck in 2011, try to put it all together and form the big picture of 2050.
Outraged! Outraged, I say! Wait...Europe? 2050? I don't live there. Oh, and I'll be dead. Well then, carry on!
dull-eyed footstool-temporary octopus
Yeah, 2000 is pretty much 1960.
With microwave ovens. ...etc
And teflon kitchenware.
And mobile phones
And digital cameras
And the world wide web
And slashdot
With commonly distributed measles vaccine
And mass-produced insulin
And VCR's & DVR's
And The Pill (approved in 1960)
And barcodes
With some understanding of genetics & proteomics
Having found Cosmic microwave background radiation (aka confirming the big bang)
Really, 2000 is pretty much 1960 indeed!
I bet the changes in 40 years will be similarly... unimpressive.
There's a lot of this going on in Europe and to a lesser extent, N. America. Make a commitment, but put it so far off into the future that you can take credit for being "green" or visionary without having to actually do anything or make any hard choices. If the technology works out, you get to take credit for it. If the technology fails, then it's some other person who gets to repeal the law, but you'll be long gone by then.
Good stewardship of our natural resources is a good thing, but the problem with environmentalism is it has become a movement which can do no wrong and knows no self-criticism. Any inconvenience or failure is either a misunderstanding (stupid people), or poor implementation (the people are too stupid to to it right, so we have to make it simpler). So the EU will go on mandating Ethanol-based fuel additives which deplete the rain forests, energy-saving lightbulbs, which contain mercury and need to be properly disposed of, etc.
Here in Luxembourg, some gas stations have queues every damned weekend from non locals filling up. While I have a gas guzzler (~9l/100km to 7.5l/100km... it's a 11 year old car by now, which I bought new back in the day. It suits my needs and I see no reason replacing it with something new, even if it would be more economical... Breaking even would take years), I would applaud if they matched gas prices in neighbouring countries.
As a matter of fact, this is one of the places where the EU should step in and harmonize the prices and taxation over the whole EU.
Forced abortions? Forced vasectomy for all men? (Maybe forced castration, that would probably also reduce the number of wars, and definitely reduce the number of rapes.)Or maybe just don't provide government support to anyone with a child, enabling only the rich to reproduce, and producing more property "crime" as the poor have to steal to support their families.
Consider all the other option, Voluntary measures.
Personally, I think simply raising the living standard of everyone will be far better. Demonstrated fact that countries with higher living standards have lower birthrates.
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Don't forget bicycling, which is a popular way to travel overland. I spend most of the year traveling by hitchhiking all over the world, and if it gets too expensive for most people to drive cars, I imagine that me and my peers will began to bicycle more.
"We will not be banning cars from city centres anymore than we will be having rectangular bananas,"
Another politician outed himself as a retard who doesn't have any real arguments, so he resorts to stupid rants.
A lot of Tories are against the EU, his rant is snide dig at supposed EU regulations. Unfortunately the regulation on "straight bananas" wasn't quite what the Eurosceptics thought it was - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6481969.stm.
If petrol's going to get (more) heavily taxed - or banned altogether - that's a good incentive to make your next car one that doesn't use petrol. You may even find you prefer them.
You got 39 years to decide; no rush.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Where do all these electric cars get their power from? It's okay to pollute wherever the power plants are built, just as long as it's not in the city limits, eh?
Why do the power plants need to be polluting? This proposal does come from the continent that leads the way on alternative energy sources like wind, solar and nuclear power.
1. this is bigger issue than you.
2. what country do you live in? I've lived in Frankfurt and Stockholm and the public transport is extremely useful and almost always on time.
3. the EU is socialistic and if you don't like it, move to America where you don't have any social programs/systems ... that way you can drive everywhere you go ... even to the mailbox to receive your daily mail.
Except the UK said "No", basically.
But then, that's nothing new. Anyone who thinks that the UK is part of the EU in anything other than writing probably should visit here sometime.
. I do it because it's less not fun than taking public transportation.
Well, then we'll change that, one way or the other.
So either you make it so that I don't have to go to work that far away or you shut the fuck up about how I get there.
Fine, I'll pick option 1, and I'll do it by making it impossible for people to commute that far. Then the free market will sort it out - companies will move to where there are people living, or affordable housing will be built closer to where there is work, or whatever.
And no, getting another job somewhere else is not an option. Changing my profession is not an option. Sacrificing what little comfort in life I have for your stupid ideas is NOT a FUCKING OPTION!
Pfft. Typical whiney driver. If you're actually so close to the poverty line that you can't afford the taxes, maybe you'd be better off on welfare. Otherwise, quit your bitching.
People should stop expecting everyone else to bend over backwards for their nutcase ideas.
Exactly backwards; you're making the world worse for everyone else for the sake of your own personal comfort.
What you are doing now is telling the nigger-slave to work harder or else he gets the whip.
Actually it's very much like telling the overseer to stop using slave labour. If you look at what slaveowners were writing you'll find very similar complaints to your own - "I can't afford machines or paid labour. Changing the way I farm is not an option, changing professions is not an option. Either make it so I don't have to harvest or shut the fuck up about how I do it."
I am trolling
It's a lot easier to control the pollution at one large power plant than tens of millions of tiny ones.
Additionally, electricity acts as an abstraction layer. If there were a breakthrough in fusion generation, the EV fleet wouldn't have to change, in fact nothing would have to change, merely by putting the new fusion station on the grid, the entire fleet becomes a lot less polluting.
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You're not a typical Helsinki resident and I and many other inhabitants of the city would call you a lazy fool.
What are you talking about?
Even though Europe is quite far in the north, its climate is perfect for agriculture thanks to the Gulf Stream.
It is actually one of the most agriculturally privileged regions in the world, which is one of the reasons for its important role in the development of civilization and culture (if you don't have to worry too much about having enough to eat you can spend your time on making life easier and more enjoyable in other ways).
Seriously, how is it a stretch to imagine a future where the primary source of energy is not derived from burning dead dinosaurs and plants?
Dont get me wrong, I love my Jeep! It is a hobby for me, but I certainly do not expect it will be my primary mode of transport in 20+ year. At least I hope to god we would have progressed a bit faster than that.
The move off fossil fuels is just like anything else that's hard; if you don't start at some point, you will never get there.
True. And you can extend the reach, speed and comfort of a bicycle by help of a small electric engine-and-battery. Because bicycles are amazingly energy-effective. On level ground, a bicycle needs aproximately 40 wh (or 0.04Kwh) of energy for each mile traveled.
A modern lithium-ion battery holds 300-600wh/litre, thus a 3-litre battery weighing around 10kg, holds sufficient energy to propel bike and rider over aproximately 35 miles. If you use the battery merely as "support", doing most of the pedaling yourself, but letting it help out with the trickier parts, that range gets even better.
smoking is being phased out... it's a dying habit
"Pedestrianised" - where will the bikes and buses go then? Walking is not a replacement for either of these, for distances over a mile.
I mean to change [almost] all the white roads on this map: restrict them to pedestrian and cyclists (and similarly for the City and the East End). Or, just change them so there are no through routes for car-sized vehicles, i.e. by blocking roads with bollards wide enough to let a bicycle pass (but I think signs and a little enforcement should be sufficient).
It would be a much nicer place to be at all times of the day.
I am pretty sure Venice should be counted as "modern" and it is not just "petrol car" free but totally car free :-)
If you don't get paid well enough for your contributions to the economy, that's a different story and should be addressed. But not by cheap fuel with all the side-effects, but just plain higher, more fair wages. Indirect solutions only get you screwed over.
This here is really just about petrol cars and their emissions. Emissions which have effects that provably accumulate a lot of varied damage all over society. The health costs alone are quite insane, but not the only cost.
It is damage which so far people would ignore, because doing anything individually does mainly just dents their own budget with no visible personal gain. Well, now you eventually might have to, and it makes sense for (almost) everyone if everyone drastically reduces or stops their emissions.
It's entirely possible to ban petrol cars from cities.
Thousands of towns and cities in Europe have car-free areas in their centre, sometimes just a couple of streets, sometimes the whole city centre. A few charge cars to drive in/near the centre. Some ban highly-polluting vehicles (LEZs, e.g. for Greater London).
And no, getting another job somewhere else is not an option. Changing my profession is not an option. Sacrificing what little comfort in life I have for your stupid ideas is NOT a FUCKING OPTION!
Not to be a troll, but why are ideas that conflict with yours "stupid?" I'd say many, many things are changeable options in your life you just don't have the will or means to overcome the obstacles. I think way up top I saw a good analysis of the situation. Come 2050 gas will be so expensive that you will be BEGGING your government to solve your problems for you. "Get me to work! Changing my job is not an option! Changing where I live is not an option! CHANGING POLITICIANS that don't give me what I NEED now now now IS an option!! GIVE ME for I DEMAND you fix my cost of travel." - Kokuyo circa 2047
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
As a result of our high prices, we drive more efficient vehicles. Very roughly, we use half as much fuel per km as North Americans. In fact, we do not pay an awful lot more per passenger km than they do, and I would argue that our vehicles are generally safer and better engineered - in the US, safety often means just adding mass and padding.
Thus we have a double insulation against fuel cost uncertainty; there is capacity for the Government to reduce taxation in a fuel price shock to maintain economic stability, and we use less of it anyway and so are less exposed. The policy has succeeded; Europe doesn't have exurbs with collapsed property values, and we have a much smaller park of uneconomic passenger trucks which represent a future drain on the US economy.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
We're talking of a ban occurring 40 years into the future. Most vehicles are 10 years old or less. I expect it's going to happen that hybrids and eventually electric vehicles replace combustion engines anyway. Of course moving to electric vehicles is one thing, but people shouldn't be driving them into cities without extraordinarily good reasons either, e.g. they live there, they're disabled or whatever. So impose congestion charges, pay & ride schemes and provide decent public transportation that lets people leave their cars at home or on the outskirts and travel the remainder of the way. It's not rocket science but it does need a coordinated and determined timeline to see it through.
At first I thought that doing this by 2050 sounded way too long. Then I realised, the technology to make it possible will take 20 years, but the rest of the time will be to get enough people to actually realise that banging a metal block up and down inside a closed space by exploding a volatile chemical is really a very poor idea for obtaining motive power indeed. This methodology has had its day, time to move on.
[...] and all that money doesnt even go into roads and such, like it should, most of the road network is very much low capacity, and we are only just starting to build extra roads [...]
Road network is low capacity??? In the Netherlands???
You have your facts wrong. The main problem is that the Dutch are in the EU's top-3 of the people who commute the most. The roads are fine, but the Dutch travel too far to work!
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3085647.stm
On topic again: a plan to ban something in 39 years is of course ridiculous. A whole new generation of politicians will have taken over by then, and assuming that we have the same system, they will make their own plans to impress the people for the upcoming elections.
If we have a different system, then the current plans are irrelevant anyway.
It's normal for these areas to be open to delivery vehicles at a specific time (e.g. at night, before 9, whatever).
Westminster already has a policy for HGV loading times. Traffic congestion in London encourages deliveries at night at the moment anyway.
This really isn't anything new: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_zone
London is one of very few cities I've been in (as a resident or visitor) without a significant car-free area, relative to its size.
The USA has invested so little in public transit since the 1960s, that the average american doesn't see it. In fact, the existing infrastructure back then (street cars, rail) has mostly crumbled and gone to shit. The only public transit to have expanded are buses.
But what is so new about ferries? They existed a long time before the 60s.
The term "petrol cars", as I understand it, generally excludes Diesel-engine vehicles. Being as in many places in the EU Diesel-powered vehicles make up half or more of the vehicles on the road - including vehicles owned by individuals - this isn't that huge of a shift.
Now, if they were to instead ban cars with internal combustion engines, that would be a huge shift.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The safest and most effective way to deal with nuclear waste in storage pools is to not have huge quantities of it to begin with - burn it! if it's so hot that it has to be cooled, it's hot enough to use as fuel. IFRs and other 'burner' technologies can reduce the waste's quantity by a factor of 100 and storage requirements by thousands of years.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Laws like this are the only way to force car manufacturers to truly innovate with new technologies.
~Syberz
It's the old "you're just shifting emissions from tailpipe to powerplant" myth:
In the EU today:
France 85% from Nuclear
UK 25% from Nuclear/Renewables/Hydro
Germany 25% Nuclear and renewable combined
Austria 70% renewable
For the future the EU has a target of 20% renewable energy by 2020, and something like 80% or 90% by 2050. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_European_Union
This describes EVs running on the UK's current electricity generation mix in comparison with small, fuel efficient petrol cars:
"If we look only at the three smallest categories of conventional car, average exhaust pipe emissions from new cars in 2009 were about 130g CO2/km. Emissions from producing the fuel (extracting and refining the oil) typically adds another 10% to 18% on top, bringing the total for new small cars in 2009 to 145155g CO2/km. Based on these figures, electric cars currently emit about a third less carbon on average than small conventional cars."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/electric-vision/electricity-supply-fossil-fuels
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
Nearly all of the world's population growth is in developing nations. Europe right now is very close to zero population growth, and is expected to go negative into population decline before 2050.
Wait, someone from Luxembourg calling someone from another European country a tax dodger? I hate to break this to you but that defies certain stereotypes the rest of us have about Luxembourgers...
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
To get somewhere you have to start moving. If 39 year plan is "too far" for you, please tell us how much faster we could have achieved that.
Would be nice to have Canada follow in their footsteps
Meanwhile, in the Land of the Free, the citizens are trampled without the benefit of efficiency.
"Moving it farther away from me on any day that it's raining or snowing would just plain suck. "
Are you made of sugar or do you just hate coats?
Really? Are you picturing some Snidely Whiplash type lightbulb baron, sitting in his leather chair in the CFL Bulb, Inc. boardroom, smoking an El Presidente as he celebrates the completion of his master plan to get rid of his competition through an "energy efficiency law." He cackles maniacally as the money starts pouring through the vents...
Or maybe your bit about patents is full of shit. A quick look on the CFL wiki article shows that the patent on the very common spiral CFL bulb expired already. This isn't about corporate profits, it's about pushing the public towards better lighting. It's the same reason we have minimum emissions standards for vehicles.
It's easier to replace 2 coal power plants than 100k privately owned cars.
Replace them with what? Solar and wind don't cut it now. They certainly won't stand a chance once all of our cars are added to the grid. That leaves unicorn farts and pixie dust, both of which are in extremely short supply.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
No, I cannot imagine cities without cars by 2050. I think it is very unlikely that will happen.
Much more likely is Europe without a European Commission by 2050. These bureaucrats make themselves so incredibly impossible that whatever is happening in the middle-East right now, will also happen to the Bureaucrats in Brussels. My prediction is 2025 at the latest..
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
The internal combustion engine was and for the near future still is the most economically viable, everyday practical and most lightweight means of generating motive power for cars and motorcycles.
That may change within the next 20 years or so, in fact I personally hope it changes withing the next 5 or 10, so we can use what oil we have left for things we have yet to develop alternatives for.
Electric power is close, but it's still not quite there for everyday usage. For a lot of people it's perfectly fine and the percentage will grow larger as battery tech and electric drivetrains are developed further. But for some things, motorcycles in particular, electric power is simply too heavy and too cumbersome to "refuel". For now.
Eat the rich.
Maybe.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-16-2010/an-energy-independent-future
Big oil will find that increasingly hard to do as their product becomes harder to reach and more and more expensive. Why do you think big oil is currently spending so much money trying to become big green? Even they can smell the change on the wind (although I agree they'll block for as long as they feel they can get away with it).