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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."
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.
Many cities have banned driving in the city center. It's quite nice, actually.
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 summary links to three sources. Is that not enough for you?
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?
The CSM is actually known and respected for it's objectivity and relative lack of sensationalism, especially on such topics as the Middle East. It's religious aspect was always kept to a single article in the daily version. I would assume they still keep it very limited with their web/weekly publishing. In fact my grandmother was a Christian Scientist and they seem to be about the least evangelical and proselytizing of pretty much any Christian denomination.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
People really don't care about the quality of journalism, they just want brand names they can pledge their loyalty to. The CSM is a highly respected organization that does good research and reporting.
Anybody who assumes the organization is as messed up as the religious dogma has no credibility themselves.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
It's a good thing, when coupled with affordable, functional public transport, or a city layout which does not depend upon it, sans food deserts and the like. I've never been to Mexico City, so I wouldn't know how many neighborhoods would be adversely affected, and which would get along just fine.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
More cities should take a page from Buffalo New York's idea to reduce driving downtown. First, you take the world's most useless mass transit company and you populate it exclusively with degenerate idiots who don't know a schedule from the skid marks on their uniform. You then make it mandatory that they be constantly ever present as an impediment to traffic, yet always late picking up anyone at the designated bus stops by offsetting the actual bus pickup times from the published schedule by roughly fifteen minutes. Complement this with a train system that is a standalone joke all by itself: ( http://metro.nfta.com/Routes/p... ) That crooked line on the right side of page two is the entire transit line, it's less than ten miles total. Once you get downtown, you'll want to drop rotaries at every other intersection all of them bracketed by traffic lights and some of them with traffic lights actually inside them (I wish I was making that part up). Allow all commercial parking lots to collude and fix prices based on locally occurring events and make sure that every other street is a single lane one way only. Oh remember that transit company from before? We're going to allow them to hire a representative of these same parking companies as a C level employee because what the hell does "conflict of interest" really mean anyway? To top it all off, just in case some individual has the patience of a saint, you'll want to help yourself to a generous portion of government housing right in the middle of everything to make damn sure that the infrastructure is inadequate for the population for the population density. And to ensure a constant stream of harassment from cracked out bums at every corner, why not place two thirds of the cities methadone clinics right there next to your commercially viable property along the main traffic routes and within stumbling distance of everything that anyone might want to go to. This city needs a reset button.
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.