Italy bans cars

[et@enterprise.net]

On the commuter cars thread, someone suggested that it would 
take a crisis like another fuel shortage to change car use, then 
people would resort to stealing bikes to get about.  In Italy, 
they're down to HORSES!


from bbc news (watch out for the chopped URL):
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_605000/60571
0.stm

By David Willey in Rome 
Millions of Italians living in the Milan area went without their 
cars on Sunday in an experiment aimed at reducing atmospheric 
pollution levels. 

For 17 days, smog and suspended particles in the air have posed 
a health risk to the citizens of Milan. The city-wide car - put 
in place at eight o'clock on Sunday morning - was top of the 
national news. 

Only electric cars, city buses and essential services such as 
the police are allowed on the streets until eight in the 
evening. 

The reaction so far has been fairly positive. No one likes to 
suffocate for days on end under a blanket of pollution. One 
motorist said he had two cars but was quite happy to leave them 
both at home on a Sunday. 

Another motorist who appeared on horseback in the city centre 
said he and his friends had clubbed together to buy a horse. 

Traffic police levied on-the-spot fines of $60 on private 
motorists who broke the car ban. 

The car ban was in force not only in the centre of Italy's 
leading industrial city but also in the suburbs and in other 
nearby towns, such as the lakeside resorts of Lecco and Como. 
Francesco Ferrante, the president of Italy's leading 
environmental association, has his doubts, however, as to 
whether Sunday's car ban, due to be extended to other Italian 
cities next month, can ever solve the basic problem - that there 
are too many cars. 

"I do think that for big cities like London, maybe for Rome, 
like Paris, the traffic problem is something that cannot be 
solved at all. 

"So we are too many; there are too many cars; and our cities 
(have) not been built for cars. You can obviously diminish the 
problem, but you cannot solve it completely." 

>From Sunday night, the centre of Milan will once more fill with 
traffic. Only on Monday morning shall we know just how much 
pollution levels have fallen. 



--
Evan.