Italy, Dirty Air at Record Levels, Is Putting Limits on Traffic

We know the Pope is not going to like this.  Reading the caption and headlines, you start to feel bad for the police sitting in the middle of the heavy air squalor directing traffic.

Interesting some of the short-term fixes they have used, including beefing up use of mass transit through discounts for all day riding.  Other cities, like London, have long used levies and regulations to cut traffic in their urban centers.  Toronto has refused to re-permit parking lots in town as those lots came up on renewals, thereby eradicating space for cars and forcing people to use mass transient.

Of course, all that works well if you have a good rail/bus system in place.  In Providence, we do not.  Then what?

A long-term fix is to move people closer to work, expand mixed-use communities, improve mass transient systems and switch car and buses to clean sources of fuels.  We hope Italy and the rest of Europe does not end up looking like Beijing in which you live life through a mask, if you come out at all.

Italy, Dirty Air at Record Levels, Is Putting Limits on Traffic

By GAIA PIANIGIANI

                     

                

A police officer directing traffic in Rome on Thursday. Car traffic in the city will be limited next Monday and Tuesday in the early morning and late afternoon.                                    

SIENA, Italy — The air in Milan has gotten so dirty that cars and motorcycles will be banned from city streets for several periods next week to reduce emissions, and Rome is also restricting traffic to fight pollution.

An unusually long period of stable weather with little rain or wind has driven air pollution levels to record highs in Italy and prompted emergency measures in a number of cities.

That has happened before, especially in Milan, which is in a valley and is prone to weather conditions that trap air pollution close to the ground. Even so, the city government’s decision on Wednesday to restrict traffic between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. for three days next week made headlines and raised health concerns.

In Rome, the special commissioner who is acting as mayor said Thursday that car traffic in the city would once again be limited next Monday and Tuesday in the early morning and late afternoon, based on the last digits of license plate numbers, while single-ride tickets on the city’s transit system would become passes valid all day. The city has resorted to similar steps several times this fall, including Monday and Tuesday this week. Violators face a fine of about $165.

The weather has been unusually mild and dry. Many regions have had no rain for more than seven weeks, and none is forecast until early January. As a result, in Rome, “high concentrations of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide continue, aggravated by the weather situation of high pressure and absence of wind,” the city government said.

Many cities across Italy faced similar problems. In the northwestern city of Turin, public transportation was free for two days this month to encourage commuters to leave their cars at home.

When levels of dangerous particulate matter in Milan’s air rose above European Union pollution limits in November, the city put limits on diesel cars, which are generally more polluting than gasoline-fueled models.

The city also made bus and tram rides free for families taking their children to school, and began allowing passengers unlimited travel on public transit for about $1.65 a day, which officials said had increased ticket sales by 11 percent.

The mayor of Milan, Giuliano Pisapia, urged mayors of neighboring towns to join in his city’s action because the pollution problem was affecting the whole region.

“For these provisions against air pollution to be more effective, they have to regard a vast area, and not only the individual towns,” Mr. Pisapia said in a statement.

Scientists say that such an extended period of high atmospheric pressure is an unusual phenomenon for the Mediterranean in autumn and winter. But many argue that whatever the weather, Italy needs to get better control over the heavy traffic choking its cities and the emissions from home heating systems that are scarcely monitored by the authorities.

“Blocking traffic for one or two days is merely a palliative; so is stopping cars based on license plate numbers,” said Nicola Pirrone, director of the Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research at Italy’s National Research Council. “Italy needs serious infrastructural investments to enhance greener transportation and greenhouse emissions.”