Photo credit: Miguel Berrocal

The Governing Board of the Madrid City Council has approved the Sustainable Mobility Ordinance that seeks to reinforce road safety, promote sustainability and contribute to improving air quality. The document will be sent to the municipal groups so that they present their amendments with the aim of improving the regulations before it is taken to extraordinary commission and plenary sessions for final approval in September.

To meet the first of the challenges, it is essential that all trips that occur in the city are sustainable. Road traffic is the main responsible for nitrogen dioxide air pollution in the city, specifically 53.3% of total NO2 and 74.4% if only local sources are considered on which the Madrid City Council has ability to regulate.

The tourism vehicles (excluding taxis) represent 79.4% of the trips made in the municipality. Most have diesel as their energy source, accounting for 69.9% of journeys, compared to 28.2% for gasoline. Those powered by alternative fuels, like LPG and CNG, only reach 1.9%.

To encourage the transfer to these clean technologies, one of the most important measures contemplated by the Ordinance is included in the article 21, since it grants a basic protection for all citizens in the entire municipal term with the progressive restriction of circulation to those most polluting vehicles, those that do not have an environmental label (the tag issued by the Spanish DGT granted to low emission vehicles), through the creation of Madrid Low Emission Zone.

A vehicle without the environmental label emits an average of 1.6 times more gases than a vehicle with environmental classification B; 7.2 times more than a vehicle with environmental classification C and 47 times more than a vehicle with environmental classification ECO (which includes those powered by Autogas).

“This ordinance, together with the Air Quality ordinance that was approved in March and the Roadmap to Climate Neutrality of the capital, place Madrid at the forefront of sustainability and the fight against climate change,” said the Mayor of Madrid José Luis Martínez-Almeida.

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15 September 2021