Amsterdam says that all cars and motorcycles running on fossil fuel will be banned from the city from 2030. The city’s council will phase in changes over the next six years as it works towards the aim of having all traffic within the built-up area of the city to be emission-free by 2030.
Starting from next year, it will restrict diesel cars that are 15 years or older from going within the A10 ring road around the city. From 2022, public buses and coaches that emit exhaust fumes will no longer be able to enter the city centre, and by 2025, the ban will be extended mopeds/light mopeds as well as pleasure crafts on its waterways, The Guardian reports.
The city will encourage its residents to switch to electric and hydrogen cars by offering charging stations to every buyer of such vehicles, but that will involve ramping up charging stations to make the project viable. There are currently 3,000 charging stations in the city, and for the plan to work this will need to be increased to anywhere from 16,000 to 23,000 charging stations by 2025.
However, the move towards clean has its detractors – the Rai Association, the automotive industry’s lobby group, said the electrification plan was regressive and would leave many without the means for personal mobility.
“Many tens of thousands of families who have no money for an electric car will soon be left out in the cold. In 2030, about one third of the cars will be electric, we expect. But there will also be a lot of people who won’t be able to afford that by then. That makes Amsterdam a city of the rich,” a spokesman for the association said.
Amsterdam’s move towards zero-emissions coincides with the Netherlands’ plans of halting the sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, which is five years on from the plan of accomplishing the task by 2025. Air pollution in the Netherlands is worse than European rules permit, and there are concerns that the levels of nitrogen dioxide and particle matter emissions are causing a rise in respiratory illnesses.
Many European countries and cities have announced a similar course of action, including Britain and France, both of which plan to halt sales of new diesel and petrol-powered vehicles by 2040. At the national level, Paris will prohibit all diesel cars by 2024 (similar to Rome) and cars with internal combustion engines by 2030.
Last year, Madrid – which will ban diesel cars from its steets by 2025 – began restricting access to petrol vehicles made prior to 2000 and diesel vehicles made prior to 2006. Norway is also set to halt the sales of all new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2025.
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