https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/11/stockholm-ban-petrol-and-diesel-cars-city-centre-2025-swedish-capital-pollution
Scheme goes further than most, as Swedish city tries to reduce pollution and noise
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.
There are many issues with ICE cars, and it wouldn't surprise if one of the main motivations behind the ban is to lessen dependence on fossil fuels.
This is a fairly low risk step to see if deliveries and short range transport will switch into EV. It also lowers a lot of air pollution and noise, it looks suitably progressive and is easily reversible if shit goes wrong.
For sure, good optics even though I argue that this basically means poorer people aren't allowed to drive in the city only people rich enough to buy the right via a (relatively) expensive BEV. Sure the Renault Zoey exist and similar but on the whole BEVs are significantly more expensive.
As for noise this might be true at the low speeds of the city center but keep in mind that on high ways BEVs make more noise than ICE vehicles due to the aforementioned increased mass, on average. High speeds it's tyre friction and air friction which is the noise driver and not engine sounds.
Good thing this is for a dozen city blocks at the center of an organically grown city then.
Walkable in about 15 minutes, and no highways.
and no highways.
Well, the E4 years through parts of the city like a sad scar in Essingeleden, so that's not quite true.
Unless you're talking about the zone where ICE cars will be banned, in which case - yes indeed. I believe one of the exits of Klaratunneln is located inside the zone, but that's not quite a highway, just highway-adjecent.
I think your concerns are valid, but on the whole electric vehicles have the potential to improve more than ICE vehicles https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/running/do-electric-vehicles-produce-more-tyre-and-brake-pollution-than-petrol-and/
The extra mass of current EVs probably (note I don't know for sure) doesn't cancel out their other benefits, and as battery tech (and tyre tech I guess) improves they'll get better.
Sure, I'm not saying they're somehow worse than ICE vehicles, they're demonstrably not. But particulate matter is the big health issue and not gases, and more and more studies is highlighting that tires are very big on particulate matter. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/23/health-impact-tyre-particles-increasing-concern-air-pollution
Note that all these studies are VERY recent considering how long we've been running vehicles with rubber based tyres. I also strongly dislike how the report you linked only focused in properly on brakes, which I know full well are vastly superior on hybrid and BEVs due to regenerative breaking and the restarted use of drum-style breaks. And more or less dismisses the tyre aspect, which is extremely irresponsible in my opinion. Granted though that it's arguing from a "Are BEVs worse than ICE vehicles?" so I can excuse some of it.
Completely agree with you, it's a problem and it'll get worse until there's new regulation on it, but hey at least the cities will be quieter as we cough up rubber and dust.
I think the issue might be visibility.
Naively, it feels like most of the issue is from a small number of extra sooty vehicles. But that belief is probably just because of how visible it is. The brake/Tyree dust isn’t visible because it is more spread out.
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!
So the only vehicles zipping around the pedestrians will be the silent ones? Oh, great!
/s
Seriously, tho, why not just ban all vehicles? Invest in public transit and bike sharing programs.
Let's maintain a good public transportation infrastructure so poor people and anyone else can move easily for much cheaper than having a car.
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.
Sweden already has very good public transportation, bike infrastructure, and walkability. So there are plenty of other options. Nobody is going to become more poor over this.
The pollution from fossil fuel cars is a non monetary cost. That cost should not be placed on the shoulders of others.
As the other commenter said, there is a lot less dependence in Stockholm on cars than most places. Sweden has extremely low poverty rates anyway, and has pretty.good systems in place for the poor
Great idea in an ideal world, in reality it won’t work. Not everyone can afford electric vehicles, charging points are still scarse, charge times are longer than refuelling oil.
We need to work those problems out before they genuinely become a viable option.
American, right? Perfectly feasible with good public transport in a dense European cities like Stockholm. It's not a particularly large area either. Sidewalks and cycle paths everywhere.
If you read the article, you'll also read that exceptions will be made for the disabled, large (hybrid) vans, emergency services, etc.
TBH plenty of European cities, taking your car into the city centre is for rich people anyway. Parking can easily costs you 50 euros per day or more.
Meanwhile, you can often park for free (or next to free) at a so called park and ride at the edge of the city, then hop on public transport to the centre for 5-10 minutes and avoid congestion almost entirely.
I’m not even American, I’m from the UK. I’m all for going green but I am also being a realist.