The Badalona City Council (Barcelonès) will approve a three-year moratorium, until January 1, 2027, on the application of vehicle restrictions in Low Emission Zones that in accordance with Law 7/2021, on Climate Change and Municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants must adopt the Energy Transition.
The municipal government plans to approve the request to postpone the sanctions until 2027 in a plenary session of the City Council this September. A low emissions zone (ZBE) is the delimited urban environment in which the access and circulation of the most polluting vehicles is restricted, according to the label or environmental badge of each one, and also according to the environmental episodes that may affect or worsen air quality conditions. According to the data available to the City Council, on certain occasions the restrictions on driving through low-emission zones could affect half of the vehicles in Badalona.
The mayor of Badalona, Xavier Garcia Albiol, has assured that: “we are making this postponement thinking of all the residents of Badalona who would be punished with the entry into force of the low emissions zone and who cannot change their car.” The mayor added that "we cannot force, in the current situation of economic crisis, the increase in shopping basket prices, the increase in mortgages, that the residents of Badalona have to immediately face an expense as important as the purchase of a vehicle.”
The mayor wanted to make it clear that "this Government is convinced that measures must be taken to improve air quality because we are committed to sustainability and health", however, he added "it is necessary before requesting these efforts to the citizens that from the administrations we are taking real steps in improving public transport such as the extension of Metro line 1, the expansion of the tram network that facilitates the mobility of neighborhoods such as Mora and Progreso, as well as the transformation and the renewal of bus lines to adapt them to the new reality of mobility in the city in order to have a public transport network of sufficient quality and capacity.”
