HANOI: Millions of exhaust-belching motorbikes zip through Hanoi’s narrow streets every day fueling its chronic air pollution, but authorities have backtracked from an ambitious plan to ban them in favor of electric two-wheelers.
Vehicular emissions account for more than half of the capital’s pollution problem — some days it tops world rankings for hazardous air — but the city runs on two-wheelers, the vast majority of them powered by fossil fuels.
Vietnam’s Communist government last year announced a plan to bar petrol motorbikes from a 26-square-kilometer (10-square-mile) area in Hanoi’s historic center.
In the face of opposition from riders and delays in building charging stations, authorities have since whittled down the proposal to cover just 11 streets spread over 0.5 square kilometers.
Even that much smaller “low-emissions zone” would bar petrol bikes only on Friday evenings and some of the weekend — and is itself in doubt.
