Paris is readying to enact tougher restrictions on the use of older cars inside the city limits.
New regulations are restricting the use of older cars in Paris, while new, tougher restrictions are also under consideration in London, where rules already limit the use of vehicles in the center of the city.
The new rules in Paris, which took effect, July 1, are aimed at cleaning up the air in a city that has some of the dirtiest air in Europe outside of Moscow or Milan, according to data gather by the World Health Organization.
The new rules in Paris bar vehicles built before 1997 and motorcycles built before 1999 from the streets of the French capitol during weekday daylight hours.
Mayor Anne Hidalgo has been candid about her desire to expand the ban to cut back on smog from diesel cars and to “reclaim” the city for pedestrians and bikers, noted ClimateWire, an internet site focused on climate related issues.
The Parisian ban will also become progressively more restrictive until 2020 when only cars registered after 2011 and motorcycles registered after July 2015 will be permitted.
(Rome, Milan latest big cities to curb cars to cut pollution. For more, Click Here.)
Beijing is one of 10 Chinese cities now under a red alert due to pollution problems.
In the past, the WHO has identified vehicle emissions as a significant source of health problems and the air is considered especially foul in places such as Rome, Milan, Beijing, Rio do Janeiro, Singapore and Tokyo. Mexico is also moving to tighten up air quality regulations because of concern about pollution around Mexico City.
London’s new mayor, Sadiq Khan, proposed higher taxes on polluting vehicles coming into a downtown “low emissions zone,” like diesel cars or older models. Oslo, Norway, will ban cars from its downtown entirely by 2019. Other cities in Europe and Asia have implemented various partial bans or fees to cut down on private vehicle use.
In the U.S., motor vehicles represent the largest source of carbon emissions in the country and often account for an even larger percentage than average in urban areas, such Los Angeles and Chicago. But rather than impose bans on use of vehicle U.S. policy has focused on improving the fuel economy of individual vehicles.
(Click Here to see how the new Paris climate accord will impact motorists.)
In May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency dropped the idea of imposing regulations banning conversions of vehicles originally designed for on-road use into racecars. The proposal was dropped after protests from Congress.
BMI Research said in a note that regulations restricting vehicle usage in London and Paris could alter the patterns of demand for new vehicle sales of different fuel types if they become models for other cities to follow.
“Given the political influence of both Paris and London, these policies could represent the bellwethers for broader anti-pollution legislation that will emerge across other cities in the UK and France or even Western Europe,” BMI said.
(Click Here for more on the Chinese red alerts.)
Roughly 8% of the vehicles sold in the United Kingdom are sold in Greater London but the reach of Parisian market in somewhat smaller since it accounts for about 2% of the new vehicles sold in France each year, BMI noted.