That’s sure to be welcome news to Spain’s current government as it drafts a law on that matter. It’s an effort that could ban all but zero-emissions vehicles in the center of any town of over 50,000 residents by 2025, a ruling that would apply to 138 cities across the country. The first of those zones has in fact just arrived: On Friday, central Madrid became an ultra-low emissions zone, protected against pollution and congestion by the toughest restrictions on cars in place on a large scale in any major European city.
These restrictions will transform the way Madrileños get around their city, and will no doubt require some public readjustment. They are nonetheless popular, with 64 percent of people in the city supporting the move, on par with Catalonia’s 65 percent favorability of such restrictions. Galicia’s even higher rates could be boosted by the demonstrated success of pedestrianization in the city of Pontevedra. [...]
One single square kilometer at the heart of Madrid’s new car-free zone is home to almost 45,000 people, almost three times as many residents as in the most densely populated square kilometer of Oslo. Spanish suburbs, meanwhile, are often denser than many North American downtowns, with large numbers of people living in taller buildings and more likely to be exposed to road traffic. The issue of pollution in dense urban areas is thus a central one to a large section of the population. It may not be a coincidence that the only major European city to have something similar to Madrid’s ultra-low emissions zone is Paris, the only other European metropolis to match Spain’s urban densities. And while Paris’s restrictions on more heavily polluting vehicles have come to be accepted as normal, its restrictions on car access to some central streets has proved extremely contentious.
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