Last week, Paris tried to limit the number of cars on it's streets by banning even or odd numbered license plates on alternating days AND making tranit, electric car share (autolib) and bikeshare free. All of this was done to try and deal with pollution that was described as critical.
It comes after an air pollution alert for the region was raised on March 7 by Airparif, an independent association that measures air quality around France. Its pollution index for Paris stood at 75 on Monday – where 0 marks "very low" air pollution and 100 marks "very high."
The impact on limiting cars and making bike share wasn't as dramatic as one might expect, but then the city was probably pushed to it's limits.
The move was welcomed by Parisiens, with the use of both Autolib' and Velib' soaring. By the end of last week, Velib' reported a 130 percent hike in usage, while Autolib's was 37 percent higher.
Wonkblog's Emily Badger makes it sound like a failure, but I'm not sure that is right. It was called off because the weather changed, and it appears that it did reduce driving. Really, the point is that having a system of banning alternate plates every day doesn't work because clever drivers just buy two cheap cars, but for short term emergency use like this it should. Who would buy a car to use 2 or 3 days a year?
Still, a congestion tax that goes up on bad pollution days is probably better.