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Hanoi Plan To Ban Motorbikes By 2030 To Combat Pollution (bbc.com)
Hanoi -- a city of five million motorbikes -- is planning to ban the popular two-wheeled transport by 2030. From a report: The city council voted for the ban almost unanimously, hoping to unclog roads and reduce soaring levels of pollution. The council has also promised to increase public transport so that half the population are using it by 2030, instead of the current 12 percent. But some residents think it very unlikely the bikes will go for good. Council officials decided to put "immediate management measures" in place after a report found the number of motorbikes in Hanoi was set to grow at an "alarming" rate. Some studies suggest there are already as many as 2,500 motorbikes per kilometre. According to the non-governmental group GreenID, the city recorded 282 days of "excessive" levels of PM2.5, which is harmful to human health, last year.
One day, editors will catch their mistakes before posting. Or I'll RTFM and see if the mistake is in the source. But that day is not today. Well done, editors!
It's the trucks and cars. Encourage motorcycles and scooters, they are much more environmentally friendly, you can pack 6 of them on the road compared to every car, and are extremely low cost so they promote upward mobility of most workers, since they can now commute a fair distance to jobs (not just stuck in their own little village or district).
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The free market interprets government interference as damage and routes around it.
Alternatives will appear, the question is if they will be better or worse alternatives, because the free market doesn't really care if the solution to the damage is better or worse, just that it exists. For a negative example, see prohibition of drugs in the USA. And for a "positive" example, see Kei cars in Japan.
There are a lot of electric motorbikes around, though I think most are currently focusing on performance since that has higher margins
Did you try googling it? There are plenty of people trying to sell you an electric motorbike.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Motorbites/cycles use less energy than cars so if reducing pollution was really the goal, start with cars, which are the largest offenders. I suspect that a ban on cars would hurt a lot more economic interests. If so, this is just a political PR piece to tell the world, "see we are doing something".
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Thing one: Government plans to convert people to mass transit often, historically, fall well short of expectation. Thing two: Banning motorcycles will cause an inevitable upsurge in car ownership. It won't be 1:1 of course, but people and things gotta move and life finds a way. The most probable result will be an increase in pollution and even more packed roads.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Have gnu, will travel.
Banning motorcycles is just stupid. For one-person transportation, a modern motorcycle emits less than half of what a modern car does (per person). Even with NO pollution controls, like an ancient design, a typical motorcycle will emit less than a modern car.
Perhaps make it illegal to drive ancient motorcycles without modern pollution controls?
Also, motorcycles take up less parking, less space on the roads, and are almost no wear on the roads.
They are around, at least over here in the Netherlands. Though they are around 4x as expensive with smaller range ... so not terribly popular.
Horrible idea. Who wants to sit around waiting for coal shoveling?!
Nuclear is the future. Just replace these coal engines with clean nuclear reactors and be done with it.
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And I can't wait for you to be banned from the I-90 express lanes. Non-electric cars are destroying the Earth.
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"I won't be able to drive my bike in 2030? That's hanoi-ing."
#DeleteFacebook
In Vietnam?
I know for a fact that electric bike technology has made significant strides in the last decade. Isn't that a solution they should look at?
Not all mbikes!
Those burn lubricant oil along with the fuel.
Four strokes engines are much cleaner and help keeping the traffic low, so also help against pollution.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
It seems to me this one has a very simple solution.
Offer a significant tax incentive to exchange or refit your two-stroke or older four-stroke scooter/motorcycle to electric.
Electric scooters are awesome. They're reliable, cheap, and in some cases, less polluting than simply walking to your destination (assuming a Western diet, anyway).
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
I'm more of a ZPM fan, if your bike isn't going to speed of light why even bother.
Pelletized coal and augers are old proven technologies. You can find them in many fancy meat smokers (not coal, but electric temp controlled augers, and wood pellets).
Blowing out your stacks with steam would replace 'rolling coal'. Think of the fun.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Never been to Hanoi, don't wanna go. But if you Google Earth at the street level view you will see some interesting tidbits.
1) The motorbikes are at minimum fairly modern, not "ancient" at all. Not easily identifiable as 2 or 4 stroke to my untrained eye, but most have a tail light, which is one of the first things that gets broken on a bike, which means they are decently new.
2) The overhead situation is not going to be easily overcome. A zillion trees overhanging the streets and a billion trillion random electrical lines.
3) A big bus, not the nuclear kind, is going to have a hard time traversing a majority of Hanoi.
Good luck to Hanoi, it isn't going to be a cakewalk.
Caution: Contents under pressure
Has anyone followed the money on this one?
Because it looks to me like a ploy to increase the prevalence of cars, which are of course much bigger polluters than the worst tuned motorcycles.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
You're right, I don't even what the "I-90 express lanes" are. That's also why my joke didn't work.
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Why not simply ban Crap bikes that dont have fuel injection and a Catalytic converter? Modern bikes (if you have carbs your bike is NOT modern, even if you bought it new in 2017) do not pollute very much at all because they now use decent engine systems.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They should see what is happening in China first. Many Chinese cities had a very high usage rate of electric scooters. Very practical transport for flat cities that provide lanes for them and a potential pollution free option. Interestingly there is a movement there away from scooters to cars. When the weather is ok the scooters are a more practical solution being cheaper and faster, but in the case of China the movement to using cars is a status thing, not about what is best but what impresses others more. As a result some cities that had free flowing traffic 5 years ago are now gridlocked much of the day.
Translate that to the Hanoi situation and try and imaging 2500 cars per km! Of course Hanoi is not China and I suspect few people will be able to afford the cost step from a motorcycle to a car. Regardless it is a trend in the wrong direction. The better option would be to ban the new sales of 2 stroke motorcycles now then force the transition from petrol to electric over a period of time. The irony here is the bulk of commuters will likely switch from petrol to electric, simply because of the advantages, over the next few years. For example a few years ago in China I could buy an electric scooter for USD $400 (500W) or a 125cc motorcycle (5KW) for $1200. For the average commuter in a Chinese city it makes little difference. Now in China I have found you can buy more conventional electric motorcycle (1.2KW) for $1000. In my book that means for city commuters electric motorcycles are close to parity with petrol ones in cost and performance today.
No need for a well intentioned but short sighted law change.
I lived there a year, and left due to traffic, and traffic noise. Pollution is bad, not not much worse than most other asian cities. The biggest problem for me is the slash and burn agriculture which puts a haze over the entire region.
The bikes are almost exclusively 4 stroke, Honda Dream, Honda Wave, 100-110cc over 175 cc you get a special 200% tax, yes the big bikes then cost 3x as much! Some Suzikis and yamahas, but many parts are interchangable. There is the odd old Russian Minsk, and those are foul.. but those are mostly used in the mountains and by dumb-ass tourists.. Sometimes an old Honda Chaly mini-bike with a 50 cc but really, 99% 4 STROKE.
Post after post after post, THEY ARE 4 STROKE!
The law is a weapon of the government, not a protection for the likes of you. Surely you understand that.
When pollution gets too much, blame the little people and force them to make the sacrifices, instead of holding the big industry polluters responsible, who make the vast majority of all pollution, atmospheric and other kinds.
They might be my favorite Slashdot poster.
They hate us, and want us to die. They must be Republicans, because only they hate so much. They hate everything, and want us to die. To die!
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The Vietnamese government is approaching its self imposed 65% GDP debt limit and debt has been growing 3 times faster than GDP for the last 4 years so do not expect that the Vietnamese government is suddenly going to find the money for a big public transport infrastructure or even many more clean little Hanoi buses. The Japanese government is already upset about delays in payment for subway metro rail system they are slowly building (one line) in Ho Chi Minh City. There is no new money for public transport in Vietnam - it is a poor country! I will let others tell you why it is a poor country.
Remember that when Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond came to Vietnam, even they, the World's most famous car lovers, rode motorbikes (and a train)!
Everyone's focusing on the headline, but there is another reason to want to replace motorbikes with public transport: congestion. Every image of modern-day Hanoi I've seen has roads jammed solid with motorbikes, 5 across in each lane. Replacing motorbikes with cleaner motorbikes won't solve that.
The sidewalks are also overflowing with people driving motos during rush hour!
Traffic is jammed, OOH, there's a nice place I can drive..
Non-Rush hour, the sidewalks are used for parking the motos. Or for portable shops selling whatever, although the local Cong Anh (police without guns, vs the Army ones with guns..) are forcing out the vendors now in bigger cities. Many stories in the news about the 70 yr old illiterate peasant woman who can not sell coffee any more from her coal brasier/plastic chairs and a small table streetside shop.
The law is a weapon of the government, not a protection for the likes of you. Surely you understand that.
They do not "Hate". They simple do not care. It does not cross their minds.
In the west do you grieve for the bugs splattered on your windshield? Probably not..
Peasants defer to the wealthy. Wealthy defer to the govt. You are expected to fit yourself into this hierarchy and KNOW YOUR PLACE. If you get hit, YOUR FAULT. Should not have been doing that..
Employees defer to the boss. Period. If you act western, as an equal etc. you cause he boss to lose face. You will not be employed for long!
Do not impose your views or social standards, or ideas of equality. They have their own way, and do not want to be preached to. It works for them, violence is low, things are very peaceful if you go with the flow.
Do not JUDGE!
The law is a weapon of the government, not a protection for the likes of you. Surely you understand that.