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Paris Bans Half of All Cars On the Road
cartechboy writes "Pollution is becoming a very large issue in major cities due to the amount of vehicles on the road. To try and help this issue Paris just banned all vehicles on alternate odd and even license plates today and tomorrow. Of course, electric cars and hybrids are exempt from the new restrictions as they aren't part of the problem, rather they are seen as part of the solution. Naturally taxis, buses, emergency vehicles, and cars carrying three or more passengers (hooray for carpooling) are also exempt. High levels of particulate matter are blamed for all the various respiratory diseases, while higher oxides of nitrogen are a primary cause of smog. We'd have to say that this ban probably won't be the last one as traffic levels increase over time."
Time for an extra set of plates...
The found that people bought cheap older, less environment-friendly second vehicles so they could bypass the restrictions, making the problem worse.
Karma: Can only be portioned out by the Cosmos.
So what happens when it's my day to drive the carpool, and I need to go pick up everyone? I'm the only person in the car when I set out.
The traffic in Paris will collapse long before smog will become a problem on most days of the year. Like most old European cities, Paris just wasn't built for cars. A traffic jam of electric cars is not going to help.
Not a new concept, still an interesting development.
But they didn't ban half of the cars, they banned half of the driving.
In Bogota, Colombia (almost 8 millions of inhabitants) this measure is called "Pico y Placa". The natural answer from the people was buy a second car, so they will have two or more cars, some with even license plate and some with odd license plate. As a result, the number of cars nearly doubles itself making worst the solution than the original problem.
You built your cities so that biking, walking or taking the train isn't an option. That's that difference. Many people in Europe, most even, use cars daily, but they're not used for everything by everyone. If people want to take the train or ride a bicycle, they can, because the infrastructure exists. Imagine the traffic jams and the smog if these people also drove their cars everywhere.
This will unfairly effect those with one car, persons with two or more cars will be likely able to circumvent this.
Carpooling will only go so far as everyone will have to get out at the same place or risk the driver receiving a ticket.
Real Solution: Move out of ancient, crowded, poorly-maintained city.
São Paulo has had car circulation restrictions based on plate number for years now (more than a decade, too lazy to check exactly when). Mon-Fri, each day a couple different numbers aren't allowed on the streets.
The streets are still clogged, still polluted as hell. Government says it improved things. I can only imagine what it would be like without this restriction, then.
morcego
You built your cities so that biking, walking or taking the train isn't an option. That's that difference.
But read again what he is saying. That despite the fact that yes, european cities are often built to be more friendly to bikes/walking/mass transit, they still have a LOT of cars. So how much did it really help to design a city to facilitate this when they still have vast pollution issues from cars?
In a small counterpoint, I'm not sure Paris is really a city that embraces bikes to the same extent places like Amsterdam or Copenhagen do... and I think you are making an overly blanket statement about U.S. cities, I don't know if you know but there are quite a few large U.S. cities where you can get around very well via mass transit or bike. I found it nearly as easy to bike around San Francisco (even with the hills!) as in Amsterdam.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
NYC has like 10 million people that take the train in daily
LA, Boston and others also have millions that take the train to work
a lot of the cities in the US have less than a million people which isn't enough to pay for a train system
and even with NYC traffic, there is no smog here. i remember when i grew up there was lots of smog. but with the new cars being clean and all you can look at manhattan and there is no more smog hanging over it. the sky over NYC is clearer than parts of colorado ive been to
This is already done in Mexico City. The net result has been to INCREASE pollution. While air quality in the city did not change at all, residents simply kept their old car when they bought another one. Now they had 2 cars and could drive every day of the week because they had different plates. As a result they kept older cars that might have been salvaged running longer, producing more pollutants over the long run and also forcing the poor that could only afford one car to be the only group in compliance with the spirit of the law. Car purchases in Mexico city sky rocketed while new car production remained stagnant, meaning people were buying older used cars. Basically this law caused Mexico city to suck in every 20 year old jalopy from every neighboring city and town just so residents could get to work on time.
There have been many studies done on this. Here's just the first that popped up in Google.
Citation:
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~in...
I've heard that the diesel emissions are a large contributer to this smog, particularly NOx.
You could have no diesels on the road and you'd still have just about as much smog. We discussed here on slashdot a little while ago about how the emissions tests were flawed in that they were poor at detecting PM2.5, the finest particles accounted for in such tests. These particles are the most harmful to health, because they are too small to be expelled from the lungs by cilia. You have to wait until they get mixed into some sputum and expelled from the lungs. They're also dandy for the formation of fog particles, or dare I say, smog particles?
Modern passenger diesels have significant emissions controls. The number one more offensive consumer of diesel is container ships. Some ports are actually instituting restrictions on permitted fuels, and vessels will either have to carry multiple fuels or they'll have to be towed into and out of port by a compliant vessel. I suppose we could do this for multi-tank diesel vehicles as well. I know I wouldn't want to be sitting where the tailpipe of my 7.3 liter F250 is when the truck takes off from a light, especially when it's filled with dino juice. But then, it gets almost double the towing mileage of the gasser...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Those don't cause smog in your own city, and transport represents over a quarter of all energy usage, so gotta call BS on the general "Drop in the bucket" principle you're pushing as well.
It's only true if you're ignoring both the context, and giving a lot of wiggle room for the phrase "drop in the bucket".
Even if true, which I doubt, it's irrelevant. Paris can only control their environment, not the industrial policies of another country. Like it or not, they're doing what they can do.
The combined pollution of all the cars on the road in the entire country of France is a tiny drop in the bucket of pollution caused by industrial waste, mostly from poor countries struggling to get a foothold in the global economy.
They are plugging a leak in the wall while ignoring the torrent pouring out of the wide open window right next to it.
Talking about silly, you didn't read any of the article in question did you? They are addressing a local smog problem. Please elaborate on how limiting local pollution in the city of Paris is an ineffective way of reducing the local smog problem in the city of Paris?
Most people that drive in paris do not live in paris. They typically live in the suburbs (which are different towns) and drive to paris.
Don't the that American ass. Poor you, Europeans are meanies and you totally don't deserve anything they say about you :(
According to the World Bank (who's not known to be particularly anti-American), the per-capita oil consumption in the US in 2010 was 1,108 kilograms (clearly they are, in fact, anti-american for not using gallons). France sits at a whopping 113. UK 241. Germany 223. So yes, please, tell me more about the poor Americans who are not sucking up all the oil.
It's only enforced today (Monday March 17). For tomorrow (Tuesday 18th) it's already cancelled. They forecast less pollution. Also the public transports won't be free any more on Tuesday.
The bucket holds four drops.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Can you say the old cities of Europe were designed to facilitate biking?
They are generally, at least to the extent that narrow streets are hell for cars and make biking more practical (or at least less nerve wracking) than driving.
From direct experience, Amsterdam and Copenhagen are cities that while not explicitly having an original design for bikes, were certainly re-designed around bikes - which means loads of very dedicated biking lanes everywhere, including bike-specific traffic signals (which is a real sign that you have entered the big leagues of designing around bikes). That's also not just a "bike lane" where a bike can be, but directionally specific bike lanes on each side of large streets.
But that doesn't mean they don't have cars, there are a LOT of cars driving around Amsterdam also. And there are so many bikes that at rush hour both bike and car lanes are horribly crowded.
Here in the US, we had cities that were so choked with smog that it caused respiratory ailments.
Yes, I remember how it was... emission controls helped that quite a lot. I would agree with someone else's post that Europe's reliance on lots more diesel cars is probably a big impediment to really improving the situation.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Paris can only control their environment, not the industrial policies of another country. Like it or not, they're doing what they can do.
They can make a stink about it in the EU, probably file a lawsuit somewhere.
You don't have to put up with pollution from your neighbor and neither does an entire country.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
You can go to most of the suburbs in LA and you will see NOBODY on the sidewalks. Maybe a single jogger. Nothing else is close enough to walk TO.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
My experience is that people who live outside of NYC think that NYC == "Manhattan" while people who live inside NYC think that NYC == {Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island, Queens}. The latter is the official definition, but apart from that all the boroughs are strongly connected by subway (or ferry/subway in the case of Staten Island), sNYC taxis & busses, NYC income tax, NYC schools, a single mayor and government, and a number of cultural factors (walking culture, bodegas, etc.).
Which isn't to say that we're all one big happy family--people have strong allegiances to their borough, but I think most people in NYC feel like we are one city.
Yet, [Houston doesn't] have the pollution problem of Paris, LA, Mexico City, or Beijing.
Are you sure we don't? I looked at some EPA data, and it seems like on our bad days (in August) we're up in the particulate range that Paris is in now. We also have a lot of trouble with ozone. I'm pretty sure LA's air quality is better than ours now, or at least was for several years.
I don't think comparing Houston to Mexico City or Beijing makes sense. They have a lot more people crammed into a smaller space with worse cars.
Visit the
Diesel cars are not the problem in the EU, the fuel sold in the EU for diesel cars is cleaner than the stuff sold in the US for trucks (less sulphur content). The EU/US emission standards are almost identical and were implemented at basically the same time. Geography make some cities worse than others, an inversion layer over any city will choke it after a few days. Some cities such as LA are particularly prone to inversion layers, others such as Chicago are known for their prevailing winds and don't suffer so much from undispersed smog.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The Pacific Electric Streetcars went out of business because they were slow, expensive, and unprofitable. The stretch from downtown LA to Santa Monica averaged 13 mph. That was good compared to your options in 1905. By the 1930s, it was horribly slow.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/551/did-general-motors-destroy-the-la-mass-transit-system