Milan, the capital of fashion, is at a crossroad concerning pollution. As we are facing more and more issues having to do with climate change, a decision has to be made to reduce emissions.
The mayor is choosing to target private traffic within the confines of the city center in order to reduce the pollution from car exhausts. To go even further the mayor would like to aim for an entire city free of cars. However, not everyone agrees with the project, for many, this is an unrealistic project that contains many loopholes when it comes to how it will be enforced.
On the other hand, others view this as a chance to encourage a shift towards a more pedestrian-friendly area, especially for the shops in the city center that would highly benefit from a reduced traffic. By making the city center a safe and welcoming place for pedestrians this might encourage more people to come.
The car ban is not an original idea from Milan’s mayor but rather an inspiration from the capital of Sweden, Stockholm, that has already made clear that by the end of 2024 they wished to ban certain cars from its roads. This measure seems to become more and more popular within Europe as even France is thinking about the same alternative as the Olympic Games are right around the corner.
