Paris to ban old cars from city limits.

This ought to be interesting.

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2015/02/12/paris-to-ban-all-old-cars-from-city-limits-starting-next-year/?refer=news

This is the future for the US as well.

Sine_Qua_Non wrote: This is the future for the US as well.

Do you have any actual information? Or are you just feeling shiny-happy today?

LuxInterior wrote:

Sine_Qua_Non wrote: This is the future for the US as well.

Do you have any actual information? Or are you just feeling shiny-happy today?

Has to be joking.....Cali isn't even that bad.

This type of thing scares the living E36M3 out of me.

has this been posted to zerohedge yet or breitbart..

Real news sources are so.. you know.. real.

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine:

Its probably been on the HuffPo already, but we all know that is just another tabloid.

The French car manufacturers must have some well-paid lobbyists.

In reply to Cotton:

California hasn't gone after cars yet, but they went after trucks a couple years ago...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/1/new-california-regs-forcing-trucks-off-the-road/?page=all

Don't believe for a second that there aren't those that would push for this. There just aren't enough of them- yet.

They need to have a protest rally! The million Lemon, er, I mean Citroen, march! From what I hear, old French cars don't make that much air pollution anyway.

When that happens, I'll open a thriving business converting old cars to electric drive runabouts.

Boost_Crazy wrote: In reply to Cotton: California hasn't gone after cars yet, but they went after trucks a couple years ago... http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/1/new-california-regs-forcing-trucks-off-the-road/?page=all Don't believe for a second that there aren't those that would push for this. There just aren't enough of them- yet.

Looks like that was directed at commercial trucks 26k and over. I was talking more along the lines of enthusiast oriented stuff. Not that Cali wouldn't do it, but they haven't yet. Luckily I'm far away from Cali.....we don't even have to go through emissions in my county.

Sure. But that's for adding soot scrubbers on big old diesel trucks. They do put lots 'o E36 M3 into the air. So that could be a good thing.

Remember, just because you're paranoid, doesn't necessarily mean they're after you.

The Washington Times? The newspaper/tabloid that might as well claim Fox News is too liberal to be believed?

Have any of you actually been to Paris recently?

I have. Its a pig sty. Tiny little euro streets and lots of tiny, crappy, junk cars, filth, urine filled subway tunnels, etc. Its also bloody expensive. There are many beautiful areas and it is wonderfully walkable. Eifel Tower is amazing at night, Museums and architecture, etc.

That said, it makes perfect sense in that situation (much like many other cities in Europe and the UK) to get rid of as many personal cars as possible in the central city areas. There just isn't room to accommodate the traffic and all it takes is one crappy car to break down and you've got a traffic nightmare on your hands.

I've also been to the Philippines. If you think your daily commute is bad, try getting out of the airport in Manila. I've never seen traffic 8 lanes wide on a 5-lane road before. Scary E36 M3 to say the least. They also alternate between odd and even numbered license plates every day being allowed into Manila to try and cut down on congestion. Of course the more well off simply have two vehicles and drivers while others just have two sets of plates or you can buy off a cop or two because of the rampant corruption.

In reply to Cotton:

Yes, but it's a slippery slope. A lot of truck drivers had to buy new trucks or go out of business. By comparison, telling a realative handful of enthusiasts that they can't have their toys is pretty simple. They set a precedent and can chip away at the rest. The biggest thing stopping them is that it would be easy to label it as a poor tax, which wouldn't go over well.

Actually, a big argument for the truck ban was that the pollution from trucks disproportionally affected the poor- most truck routes, ports, industrial areas, etc. are in the poorer areas.

mr2peak wrote: When that happens, I'll open a thriving business converting old cars to electric drive runabouts.

I had the same idea!

Clarkson goes nuts about congestion and buses and city car taxes in London constantly.

My thoughts are; if they want people to utilize public transport within those city centers (centres), then streamline the process and keep them safe and clean.

I think Los Angeles is too spread out to keep people from driving.

My wife and I were in Paris briefly for the first time a couple years ago. She wanted to sit at a sidewalk cafe on the Champs Élysées and sip white wine. So I relented. Traffic on the Champs Élysées was pretty horrendous. But at the sidewalk cafe where we sat and sipped our white wine there was a tiny side street, more of an alley. To my surprise, a 60's era hot rod Rolls Royce running open exhausts kept looping around the Champs Élysées, the alley, somewhere behind the buildings, and back again about every five minutes. The locals seemed to disdain it, but it definitely made it more interesting for me. Ah, the smell of unfettered exhaust fumes and unburned hydrocarbons. It's intoxicating more than the wine. I don't know if the Champs Élysées is included in the traffic ban (I don't know how it could be) but I'd hate to see that anti-establishment Rolls disappear from there. We're going back to Paris for a full week in early May and I intend to suggest to my wife that we go back to that same sidewalk cafe to sip white wine. Daily. I'll be looking for the hot rod Rolls.

"Have any of you actually been to Paris recently?

I have. Its a pig sty. Tiny little euro streets and lots of tiny, crappy, junk cars, filth, urine filled subway tunnels, etc."

X2 ! ! ! !

Add to that the largely unregulated emissions from most cars with foreign registry, the weird smell of unburnt leaded gasoline, and the overwhelming stink of the many, MANY diesels so popular over there, and it really does make Paris, and most large European cities, unbearable.

And them there's the people themselves; they must tax soap and water very heavily over there, just sayin' . . . everyone in France smells like sour chicken soup and old cigarettes smoke.

I was in Paris in November, was there for a week. I personally didn't think the pollution seemed any worse than any other city I've been in and the air quality seemed significantly better than LA or Atlanta in the summer. I've never been to Mexico City, Tokyo, or Sao Paulo. But it didn't seem "smoggy" there.

However, there are a LOT of ratty 90's Fiats, Peugeots, and Renaults that seemingly barely get driven lining every bit of pavement in the city. Here, we would think they are cool cars because they're all manuals, most of them are diesels, and they didn't sell them here. But there they are just ratty old cars. Imagine if your town was littered with poorly maintained weather-beaten, rarely driven mid 90's Tercels, Neons, Cavaliers, Luminas, Camrys, and Tauruses. You wouldn't be very passionate about saving those either.

From an economic perspective, I think that the problem is that for all intents in purposes, it is cheaper to own a car in Paris than it should be. Those old economy cars sell for about 2000 Euro, which some people will spend in a night out at the bar. You can park for free on the street, and you only buy gas when you need it (like if you're driving out of town or across town) and even with the high price of gas/diesel, it's still cheaper than taking the train. If they increased the registration fee or made all those people pay for parking, I think that would do a lot more to get rid of the ratty cars than an attempt to ban them outright.

Can I have a couple of the Alpines?

In reply to drdisque:

You've pretty much got the measure of it, although the air pollution can get pretty grotty in summer.

I wouldn't want to own anything nice in Paris if I had to park on the street there, because it'll get turned into not-nice in short order. Parking has been a problem in Paris since the 60s so it mostly happens by ear. Easiest way to spot a tourist is to look for the dented car with the handbrake on - the local normally leave the handbrake off on level streets so everybody can bump their way into and out of a parking spot.

Paris might be the first city in Europe that tries to ban old cars, but the larger cities in Germany have had "Umweltplaketten" (literally "environmental stickers") for years now and depending on the sticker color and the current pollution level, you may or may not enter certain parts of a city. So it's nothing new.

JFX001 wrote: Clarkson goes nuts about congestion and buses and city car taxes in London constantly. My thoughts are; if they want people to utilize public transport within those city centers (centres), then streamline the process and keep them safe and clean.

And affordable - especially in London, public transport is really expensive as well. And slow, so your commute times go nuts if you don't live in convenient places. Mind you, it's cheap compared to the cost of parking if you're not on a motorcycle, but that doesn't make it cheap overall.

Paris is kinda gross. The countryside is wonderfully pleaseant as are the people.