To Fight Pollution, New Delhi Restricts When Residents Can Drive (thehindu.com)

GillBates0 sent word that New Delhi, the capital of India, is growing increasingly bold with its attempts to fight air quality problems around the city. The metro area is home to over 21 million people, who own an estimated 8.7 million vehicles. On Friday, the government decided to divide the vehicle population in half, and ban each on alternate days. Starting on January 1, vehicles with odd-numbered plates will only be allowed on the road when vehicles with even-numbered plates aren't, and vice versa. "Emergency and public vehicles along with carpools will be exempt from the restrictions. The emergency meeting where the decision was taken ... came after a Delhi High Court observation that living in Delhi was akin to living in a gas chamber."

Comments

Re:Buy two cars?

[jandersen]

Job done!

Certainly, if you are the kind of person who only thinks about your own, instant gratification and care little about how it affects others. I have never been to New Delhi, but I have been to Beijing, where it is really bad, many times, and my impression is that New Delhi is much worse. In Beijing every family seems to insist on owning at least one car, and many have two - the result is that not only do they have a tremendous traffic chaos twice a day, but people are forced to park illegally everywhere: along the sides of the streets, along the middle of the same streets, on pavements, ...

This is where government has an important role to play, I think, in restricting people - whether it is through direct legislation, taxes or incentives. A very heavy tax on large, polluting vehicles might help, especially if small, 'clean' ones were made cheaper. And perhaps a requirement, that you can only buy a car if you can prove that you have an allocated, lawful parking space for it. And so on. But of course, once you have allowed everybody to own as many cars as they want, you can't just put draconic restrictions in place from one day to another.

Re:Not news

[phayes]

Paris' episodes of high pollution that trigger odd/even plates are due to infrequent, & short-lived meteorological conditions of almost no wind or rain. They only occur a day or so most years and the authorities always wait for the limits to be hit before implementing odd/even license plate bans. Of course, this also means that the peak has always been hit and pollution would be going down naturally but that doesn't stop the greenies from trumpeting how "effective" the ban is & how it needs to be instated all year long...

Most Parisians that would be hit by the ban just take the day off (we have ~1 day/month to take off/month due to the 35hr workweek the socialists mandated). That makes it "easy" & relatively painless. Doing so more often would to shutdown part of the economy & is not a step anyone except the radical greens are willing to take -- at least until electrical vehicles become a significant part of those used.