The city of Madrid will continue to leave bad smoke behind. In September, the mobility ordinance of 2018 will be changed to an updated one with a great consensus among the political forces of the Madrid City Council. Only VOX is totally against the restrictions.
In the middle of next month, a new mobility ordinance which will replace the 2018 one, established under Mayor Manuela Carmena (Now Madrid). Now his successor, José Luis Martínez Almeida (PP), modifies it slightly to maintain the area of low emissions.
Except for the parliamentary group VOX, which asks to circulate – and pollute – freely throughout the city center, the mayor is gathering the necessary support. The new ordinance is expected to be approved this Friday and taken to plenary before the end of Central Madrid as we know it.
Some conditions harden especially for vehicles that do not have the environmental badge (Category A). As of 2022, non-residents will not be able to enter the perimeter of the M-30, and in 2023 the same for residents. Non-residents will also not be able to circulate on the M-30 in 2023.
In 2024, vehicles without an environmental label for non-residents will be prohibited from circulating throughout the municipality. Non-residents will also be prohibited from entering the M-30. Finally, in 2025, not even resident A vehicles will be allowed to enter the entire city. They will have to take them out, sell them or cancel them.
At least in the current articles there are exceptions, such as vehicles classified as historical. Currently they can enter Central Madrid to park in a car park, they are allowed to park in the ORA zone, enter the perimeter of the M-30 and obviously bypass the city through the inner ring.
Merchant vehicles will be matched to residents. For vehicles over 3.5 tons GWF, they have one more year to transition to cleaner models in terms of exhaust emissions. In addition, motorcycles will be able to enter central Madrid until 23:00 instead of until 22:00.
Perimeter of Madrid Central since 2020
That in terms of the current perimeter of Madrid Central and the M-30. In addition, another low emission zone will be created, the surroundings of the Plaza Elíptica interchange, a black spot in air pollution in the capital. No non-resident vehicle may cross the protected area without an environmental badge. They will always have to go through the underpass.
The access conditions are maintained for those labeled as Zero and ECO, They will be able to access Madrid Central as before, without any justification, and those labeled as B and C will be able to do so to access public and private car parks in the case of non-residents.
There will also be numerous exceptions, such as the delivery and collection of children in schools, nursery schools and institutes. From Monday to Friday, from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., access will be allowed. We will learn about the rest of the exceptions in more detail later..
Gran Via in Madrid
In the end, Madrid Central stays. The measure implemented in 2018 was a profound review of the anti-pollution plans of the previous mayor, Ana Botella (PP), taking them further, and with not a few controversies. The measure was launched with flaws in form, for which justice ended up overthrowing it. Hence the need for another mobility ordinance.
Arguments against the measure, such as that it was going to displace contamination from the site but not fix anything, have not been sustained. In the end, in general we can say that the people of Madrid have gotten used to it, and although the fines will be annulled, the effect has already permeated: free movement within the perimeter of Central Madrid is now a thing of the past.
If Madrid cancels the mobility ordinance of 2018 and does not remove another, it would be the first large European city to back down in that sense. Let’s take into account that several residential priority zones (APR) had been unified in Central Madrid, such as Letras, Cortes and Ópera. A Madrid saturated with cars everywhere is decidedly something as archaic as the traffic passing under the arches of the Aqueduct of Segovia.