“Pollution did not realize that a million vehicles had stopped circulating.”
Hector G. Riveros
Many politicians try to solve problems with bans. So he did Manuel Camachohead of the Department of the Federal District, before the air pollution in the late eighties. Arguing that “the winter period represents greater risks to the health of the population of the Federal District,” he published a “temporary” decree on November 8, 1989 with which he limited “the circulation of motor vehicles. based on the last digit of the plates and the color of the sticker assigned to them.”
The restriction worked at first. Many people stopped riding one day a week, but as time passed, and the program became permanent, most began to look for ways to defend themselves. Some kept their older, more polluting cars for the days when they couldn’t use their primary vehicle, others bought older cars.
In a radio interview with José Gutiérrez Vivó on March 9, 1994, the then presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio He described the program as “demagogy”: “It was counterproductive,” he declared, “because it increased the number of vehicles circulating in Mexico City.” Different studies confirmed it, such as “Rationing Can Backfire: The ‘Day Without a Car’ in Mexico”, by Gunnar S. Eskeland and Targan Ferzyoglu of the World Bank, in 1995, which said that the program was “so inefficient that it was counterproductive.” , and Lucas W. Davis, in “The Effect of Driving Restrictions on Air Quality in Mexico City,” who noted that “there is no indication that the restrictions improved air quality”; rather, “they generated an increase in the total number of vehicles in circulation, as well as a change in the composition towards high-emission vehicles.” Later studies, such as those by Héctor G. Riveros of the UNAM Institute of Physics and W. Luis Mochán of the UNAM Institute of Sciences, reached the same conclusion: “The Hoy no Circula program “It has been counterproductive – Mochán said – and has led to greater emissions of pollutants.”
Claudia Sheinbaum, Tlalpan delegation head in 2017, complained in a tweet on May 21, 2017: “6 days of environmental contingency. ORrge environmental policy in CDMX”. But neither when she was secretary of the environment in the capital from 2000 to 2006, nor as head of government from 2018 to 2023, did she promote that policy. In 2024 we have already had nine days of environmental contingency, four of them consecutive.
One would assume that politicians would have already realized the failure of this 35-year “temporary” measure. Bans often have negative consequences, especially when they are maintained indefinitely. Air pollution in Mexico City has decreased since the 1980s, but not because of Hoy no Circula, but because of catalytic converters in cars.
Failure is noticeable on days of environmental contingency. Despite the restrictions, there is no significant decrease in traffic. Available cars simply make more trips. In addition, a good part of the pollution is the product of PM10 and PM2.5 particles, which do not come from cars, but from the Tula refinery, which burns fuel oil, a very dirty fuel, and from diesel trucks and buses. Forest fires also contribute.
The worst thing is that there are solutions. Tula must operate with natural gas. We must improve public transportation, which is increasingly deteriorating, as we see in the Metro. Demonstrations and blockades complicate traffic and generate pollution. Also the anafres in street stalls and the rockets of religious celebrations. Politicians do not seem interested in solving the problem. They prefer to maintain a policy that has failed for 35 years.
Uncertainty
A person who wants to visit Mexico City by car always suffers the uncertainty of Hoy no Circula. Maybe he can arrive in the capital on a Friday, but he doesn’t know if he will be able to leave on Sunday.
- The faces of defeat
#doesnt #work #today
