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Decades ago Mexico City's air pollution was so poor, birds would fall out of the sky -- dead. Locals said living there was like smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, according to one report. In response, Mexico City took several steps to try to improve air quality including restricting driving one or two days during the weekdays. The program has had negligible results.
In 2008, the city added driving restrictions on Saturdays in hopes of moving the needle but according to new research by Lucas W. Davis, an associate professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, extending the program one more day also isn't working.
[...] To determine the impact of Saturday restrictions, Davis analyzed hourly air pollution data from 29 monitoring stations around Mexico City from 2005 to 2012. He studied emission levels for carbon monoxide; nitric oxide; nitrogen dioxide; nitrogen oxide; ozone; large particulates; small particulates; and sulfur dioxide. None of these pollutants decreased as a result of Saturday driving restrictions.
[...] "People have found other ways to get around the driving restrictions," says Davis. "Some purchase multiple cars, others take taxis or Uber."
[...] "Test every car, test every year. If you have a car that's polluting the air, you can't drive it. Period," says Davis.
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(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Sunday February 05 2017, @05:52AM
Test every car, test every year.
Why such a high testing frequency? My state, Colorado does every other year. That seems to work just fine and it halves the cost of testing.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 05 2017, @06:16AM
Doing it every year for a part of the country where the vehicles are already supposed to be adhering to a set of standards is probably more than what's needed.
I have a feeling that in Mexico those cars aren't adhering to the same levels of pollution control that those being sold in the US are. There's various reasons for that, but if the air is that bad, then they are going to need tougher measures that what they require in most of the US. Around here we've gotten to the point where we're on the verge of discontinuing the testing completely as an insufficient number of vehicles are failing the tests and the air quality has improved to the point where it's not needed.