Millions swap cars for alternative transport

14 January 2002: Four million people swapped cars for alternative transport in Italy's Lombardy region on Sunday during a 12-hour ban on private vehicles to ease soaring pollution levels.

The streets of Italy's financial hub of Milan were deserted during the first ban of 2002 as residents crammed into the metro and train systems and in some cases hit the streets on foot and by bicycle.

More than a month of blue skies in often rainy and foggy northern Italy has pushed pollution to a critical level. In some areas, no rain has fallen in 80 days.

In Milan, the ban did little to reduce the thick grey-brown pollution haze which stretched all the way to the mountains in the north, but the metro was as busy as rush-hour on a work day.

“The car ban doesn't solve anything in the long term, it might clear the air for one day, but pollution will come right back the next,” said one commuter, 35-year-old David Massironi. “The only solution is to really improve public transport.”

High pollution levels across Italy due to the unseasonably dry weather also prompted shorter car bans in other big cities like Turin and Florence.

January 2002