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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."
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.
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.
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.