- cross-posted to:
- futurology@futurology.today
- cross-posted to:
- futurology@futurology.today
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Stockholm has announced plans to become the first big capital city to ban petrol and diesel cars from its centre, in an effort to slash pollution and reduce noise.
From 2025, 20 blocks of Stockholm’s inner city area, spanning its finance and main shopping districts, will be restricted to electric vehicle traffic only.
Announcing the plan, Lars Stromgren, the city’s vice-mayor for transport, said: “Nowadays, the air in Stockholm causes babies to have lung conditions and the elderly to die prematurely.
Paris, Athens and Madrid have only banned diesel cars, and London has a charging scheme that covers the most polluting combustion engines.
“Many cities have implemented low-emission zones where high-emission cars are allowed to drive if they pay a charge,” Stromgren was quoted as saying by Air Quality News.
“We have chosen an area where large numbers of cyclists and pedestrians are exposed to unhealthy air on a daily basis.
The original article contains 402 words, the summary contains 151 words. Saved 62%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Not that I love ICE cars or anything but isn’t the big health impact from heavy vehicles like delivery trucks and, more importantly, from the rubber particles caused by car tires? A problem that in general worsens with BEVs since they’re, on average, heavier? I’m sure smell will improve significantly, but breathing tire and road dust is the main health concern as I’ve understood it. Most other pollutants get rather effectively caught in the catalytic converter, aside from CO2 but that isn’t unhealthy per se. CO in small doses out doors also isn’t a big issue. NOx bad for nature but likely of low harm to humans. Etc. Someone please correct me if I’m misinformed.
Yes, let’s make the poor people that cannot afford EV pay for emissions.
Given how limited the selection of electric vans and pickups is, I think this will backfire somewhat in terms of getting trades and technicians into the city centre.