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Mexico City Plans Car-Driving Ban To Fight Air Pollution (csmonitor.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Mexico City plans to implement a car-driving ban from April 5 to June 30 in an effort to fight high air pollution levels. Under the city's new program, all privately owned cars must remain off streets one day per week as well as one additional Saturday per month. The initiative comes after the city issued a four-day air quality alert on March 14, after the city experienced air pollution at double the national acceptance level. "The definitive 'no circulation' program will align with the new rule for vehicular verification that will be presented soon," tweeted federal Environment Secretary Rafael Pacchiano. "In addition to the car ban, the commission is also working on medium-term solutions like improving public transport."
They might as well try to ban breathing! That'd have some success.
Mexico city toll bypass rates can go up now but keep under what a bribe to a local cop will be.
So, without RTFA, the summary is misleading. It makes it appear like this program is a novel thing that has never been done.
In reality, Mexico City has been keeping a percentage of vehicles off the road for pollution fighting purposes since 1989. Vehicles stay off the road one working day per week according to their license plate's last digit.
Newer (10 years old or newer) cars were allowed to drive every day. Also, while all cars have to pass mandatory emmissions control, that had no effect on whether they could be on the road (so for instance, a newer but more polluting car would be able to go out every day while an older, potentially less-polluting car would have to stay home one day a week).
Earlier this year a court mandated that the permit to be on the road daily should be tied to the car passing emmissions control. More cars on the road are part of the reason why pollution levels reached a high-enough level to prompt the government to remove all exceptions to the program and have all cars, irrespective of age and pollutant output, stay home one day a week.
Incidentally, this program is part of the reason why there are so many cars in Mexico City: faced with the prospect of not being able to use the car once a week,many families bought a second car to also have coverage on the first car's off-the-road day.
Couldn't we pick a more reputable source than the Christian Science Monitor? Geez, this is Slashdot! We don't need articles from the Church of Christ, Scientist, which believes that prayer heals sickness and generally opposes medical treatment. Keep in mind that members of this group have been prosecuted when their children die from being denied medical treatment for otherwise treatable conditions. What's next? Articles from the Flat Earth Society? The Journal of Irreproducible Results? The Onion?
lies of air pollution
Really? They already have a real problem with that. This is not even about global warming. I take it you've never had to breathe ozone-rich air before. It hurts.
The correct title should be: Mexico City encourages the purchase of an additional car while simultaneously encouraging only the poor to stop driving.
I own two cars.
Please don't feed the trolls.
This ban is also used in other Latin American countries, although a bit different. In Colombia the ban is called "Pico y Placa", or something like " Rush hour and license plate" in English. In Bogotá, Colombia if you have a car with a license plate ending in an odd number you can't use your car on certain days of the week (there is a ban on even numbers the days you can use your car). Its main purpose in this city is to reduce the number of cars on the street as they don't have the infrastructure to support that amount of cars on the road at the same time.
In Medellín, Colombia it only applies for rush hours, and you are exempted if your car is hybrid (be it electric/gasoline or gas/gasoline) or a full electric car.
What's that saying about the pot and the kettle again? Or can I not say that anymore because it might offend someone's racial sensitivities?
If the Holo sticker no longer does anything, then why spend the extra money to get smog checks? Won't this remove the incentive for drivers to get lower emission vehicles leaving them with the disincentive of the additional costs for smog reduction with now no benefit for those added costs?
Until now vehicles have been exempt from Mexico City's "no circulation" rules if owners obtain a holographic sticker from a smog-check center certifying them as lower-emission......Environmental Commission of the Megalopolis..., said in a statement that all cars must now comply, even if they have the exemption sticker. Vehicles will also be forced from the roads one Saturday a month.
It also lowered the threshold at which alerts will be declared and predicted that atmospheric conditions will continue to favor the build-up of contaminants during the current dry season.
I've lived in/visited polluted as hell places (China, Mexico City) and I'll tell you, you certain can feel it. Feels almost like going to Quito, Ecuador, where the city is high altitude and you have to breathe harder because oxygen count is lower. But the problem with the polluted cities isn't altitude is high, it's the smog. But in both cases you really will feel it if you're used to breathing the good air of for example the countryside in Europe or USA.
Bogota, Colombia does this. It's based on your license plate. You can only operate a car on certain days. On Sundays, no cars can use the vast majority of roads in the city. It's called Ciclovia.
Reclaiming the Streets in Bogota
and the origins of the idea...
Ciclovía
Surely they'd allow me to drive my Tesla..?
The problem is due to a string of bad decisions by the city government. The new traffic regulations that took effect this year requires all to slow to less than 80 km/h in urban freeways making the considerably longer distances.
Last year the old cars in good condition were allowed to circulate every day, creating huge traffic jams.
Hybrid and electric cars are not subject to these rules, Toyota now has a waiting list of 3 months to buy a Prius and is about to bring its range of hybrid cars. The other car companies are doing the same. Normal gasoline cars are getting huge facilities to be acquired since people no longer want them.
At least something good will come out of all this turning the city into a paradise of last generation green cars.
I know only one person that drives a hybrid car in Mexico City. Yes, they are exempt. But the cars are just too expensive for the population to even consider.
I believe this will be the solution at some point, but nowadays, we are still quite far from it being possible.
FWIW, Quito sits at 2700m above sea level, and Mexico City at 2240 — Both cities are in valleys, and the suburbs rise quite higher than their "downtowns" (although Quito is a much smaller, steeper valley). As a comparison, Beijing is 43m above sea level. A completely different picture.
In Mexico City, foreigners that come to visit do feel (lightly) the lack of oxygen, even in our best days pollution-wise. It is clearly not as impressive as what I have experienced, say, in El Alto, Bolivia, at 4070m.
The problem with smog is not lower oxygen, but higher irritation due to the other components in our air. In very bad, very polluted days, eyes sting due to ozone and PM10 particles, and it's easy to develop coughing also due to PM10 and airborne sulphur compounds. Carbon monoxyde does not decrease oxygen, but it decreases our body's capability of fully using it.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's April 4th though, not April 1st.
I get paid tens of thousands of dollars each month to convince people that global warming is real, even though I know full well that it's absolutely false.
As anonymous first-person accounts go, the average letter to Penthouse is far more credible.
Air pollution from traffic kills more people than collisions. And every one of them is a "hit and run".
People have multiple cars to multiple decals to get around it: http://www.hoy-no-circula.com....
Is time to go electric and impose emission taxes to factories with strict zoning regulations.
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
It is literally in a bowl. While barring cars helps, people still fart, create smoke,etc.
Ten million dogs wander around Mexico City doing their business, which dries and powders and turns to dust in the heat and blows around to be breathed and eaten by people. Hey, maybe it's good for you, what do I know?
As usual, government doesn't know what it's doing. Since this is air pollution, they should be banning airplanes.
If mexico wants to improve air quality, they need to enforce emission testing like the united states