Choking on Pollution, Mexico City's Metropolitan Area Begins Emergency Car Ban Alejandro Davila Fragoso - ThinkProgress
go to original April 5, 2016

Mexico City is taking drastic measures to tackle its first environmental emergency in 14 years. Private cars must now remain off the roads for one day a week and one Saturday each month. Al Jazeera's Natasha Ghoneim reports. (Al Jazeera English)

Update: Smog-Alert Car Ban Jams Metro, Buses in Mexico City (Associated Press)

More than 6.8 million cars circulating Mexico City’s metropolitan area are now under an emergency car driving ban that took effect Tuesday and will last until June when the rainy season and winds pick up, ameliorating air pollution. Under this new program, all privately owned cars must remain off the streets one day per week in addition to one Saturday per month. Until now, vehicles were exempt from Mexico City’s “no circulation” or “Hoy No Circula” rules if owners had a holographic sticker certifying their cars were low emitters.

Two weeks ago officials issued a Phase 1 emergency for high ozone levels. While ozone is good as a protective layer in the stratosphere, ground-level ozone is harmful for humans, plants and the ecosystem. Ozone is also Mexico City’s biggest air pollution problem. Not since New Year’s of 2005 had the city issued a Phase 1 pollution warning for ozone.

For more than 40 years the now fourth-largest city in the world has struggled with air pollution that studies and experts said is mostly caused by vehicle emissions in conjunction with the city’s geography. Pollution gets trapped in Mexico City’s volcano-ringed valley, as the high altitude reduces the efficiency of vehicles’ internal combustion engines, and generates larger amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere. Vehicles are responsible for more than 80 percent of atmospheric contaminants, including 50 percent of ozone precursors and some 98 percent of carbon monoxide.

Yet after growing from fewer than 3 million people in 1950 to nearly 21 million as of the most recent figures show, Mexico City’s notoriously polluted air had been improving. Aside from implementing driving restrictions in 1989, during the 1990s, the government strengthened emission inspection rules that put old cars off the streets, pushed for lead-free gasoline, catalytic converters, and a reduction of sulfur in diesel fuel. In 2013, it became the first Latin American country to introduce a vehicle fuel efficiency standard, which reduces both fuel consumption and tailpipe emissions.

Read the whole article at ThinkProgress

Related: Mexico City’s Pollution Is Sending Uber’s Surge Pricing Into Overdrive (Quartz)

Related: Mexico City Car Ban Sends Commuters Scrambling for Other Transport (WSJ.com)

Related: Advocates: Mexico Suffers 20,000 Early Deaths Due to Dirty Air (AutoBlog)

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