Northern Italy agrees smog traffic stop
80 towns in February 28 car ban as first concerted move
19 February, 13:42
(ANSA) - Milan, February 19 - Some 80 mayors from across
northern Italy on Friday agreed a one-day halt to road traffic
on February 28 as a first move in battling a smog emergency in
the region."Everyone backed it to the hilt," said Turin Mayor Sergio Chiamparino, who chaired Friday's meeting as head of the national mayors' association.
Among follow-up measures, Chiamparino called for highway tolls to be raised to fund smog-busting moves. Chiamparino was the first to back Milan Mayor Letizia Moratti's recent call for a single dramatic traffic stop as a signal that Italy's industrialised north wants to clear the smog suffocating its cities.
In the past there have been many such stoppages, especially in Milan, but only on rotation. The Lombard capital's most recent traffic halt on January 31 was not supported by the municipality of Sesto San Giovanni, a smoke-stack town in the Milanese hinterland.
But Sesto's mayor fell into line Friday along with some 20 satellite towns clustered around the Lombardy capital.
Larger cities from across the Po Valley area followed suit, as far east as Padua and Venice and as far south as Rimini and Bologna.
Others included Alessandria, Asti, Cuneo, Novara, Lodi, Bergamo, Sondrio, Piacenza, Rovigo, Belluno, Verona, Treviso, Ferrara, Mantua and Forli'. Coming out of the meeting, Chiampiarino stressed the importance of the "symbolic" gesture and a co-ordinated follow-up programme of longer-term measures.
"We've covered the widest possible area".
"That's important now, but we must take further steps." As well as the tolls rise, these would include incentives for lower-polluting cars and moves to make domestic and industrial energy use cleaner and more efficient.
"I think the most important signal the towns of Italy's most polluted regions can give is to launch a concerted effort in the fight against smog," he said.
Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo recently announced plans for a national anti-smog drive.
