Moving cars will not be allowed in the center of Moscow

Photo © Boris Prikhodko/RIA Novosti

The Ministry of Natural Resources plans to mark cars whose exhaust contains too many pollutants. After the inspection, car owners will receive colorful stickers under the windshield - this will indicate the toxicity of exhaust gases. The Ministry of Natural Resources proposes to prohibit cars with stickers from entering environmentally unfavorable areas, in particular in the center of Moscow, and to increase the transport tax for owners.

The Ministry of Natural Resources refers to the fact that the practice of banning entry to certain areas of transport with high carbon monoxide emissions exists in Europe. The Ministry of Natural Resources “Kommersant” said that during the inspection, the level of pollutants in the exhaust will be measured, and the color of the stickers issued following the inspection will depend on the volume of emissions: green is permissible, red, respectively, high. For the implementation of the project, including an increase in the tax for owners of dirty cars, it is necessary to make changes to the law On Atmospheric Air Protection and the inspection procedure. The deadlines for the project have not yet been set, and by the end of the year it will be worked out with interested departments. The pilot project is planned to be held in Moscow. Back in 2006, the then head of the environmental department, Leonid Bochin, was going to put barriers in the center of the capital, and owners of cars above the Euro-2 class were handed cards with a microchip to enter.

The mayor’s office then developed a bill to introduce “restricted access zones”. But it did not come to the implementation, the mayor’s office later announced that they do not intend to restrict the entry of passenger cars. But trucks with engines below the "Euro-2" center is not available since 2004, and since 2015 their movement will be banned within the Moscow Ring Road. According to the agency "AUTOSTAT", as of January 1, 2014, in Russia of 39 million passenger cars 43% had engines of classes "Euro-0" and "Euro-1", in Moscow the situation is slightly better. Experts estimate the contribution of passenger cars to Moscow air pollution at about 70%. The main question is how to control the exhaust.

New machines are certified with the assignment of environmental class: since 2005 it is put in the PTS. There are no data on older cars, and, according to AUTOSTAT estimates, the average age of Russian cars is 14 years, foreign cars are 9 years old. Sergey Zaitsev, General Director of the Technical Inspection Operators Union, said that according to the existing inspection rules, operators have gas analyzers for measuring 4 parameters, this is enough for the implementation of a new project. But after the transfer of maintenance control to insurers in 2011, almost four-fifths of cars do not pass the due inspection - diagnostic cards are bought, “fake” data are entered into the traffic police database, the reliability of information tends to zero, Zaitsev noted.

Source: www.ridus.ru