The Economic Committee approved the decree that will allow Haifa to ban polluting vehicles from entering the city center - the fine: NIS 500 for a privately owned vehicle and NIS 1,000 for a corporate vehicle
Chairman Cable: The goal is to enable Haifa, and any authority that wishes and submits a plan, to create an area free of air pollution.
The Knesset's Economy Committee, chaired by MK Eitan Kabel, approved today 01.11.17 an amendment to the traffic order, which was submitted by the Ministry of Transportation and is intended to allow Haifa to carry out enforcement to reduce air pollution from transportation through fines. The approval of the order will allow the municipality of Haifa, which has already prepared a plan to reduce air pollution from transportation in the city , to enforce through fines.
According to the plan, the entry of polluting vehicles, Euro 4 facility and below, into areas marked with road signs will be prohibited. The arrangement will apply in the first stage to vehicles with a diesel engine weighing over 3.5 tons - mainly buses, minibuses and light and heavy trucks, and in the second stage also to diesel vehicles weighing under 3.5 tons. The order will enter into force 30 days after its publication in the records, private vehicles that violate the ban are expected to be fined NIS 500 and vehicles owned by companies and corporations are expected to be fined NIS 1,000.
Chairman Kabel said that the goal in this case is to enable Haifa, and in the future any authority that wishes and submits a plan, to create an area free of air pollution.
Attorney Ofer Levy, a representative of the Legal Bureau of the Ministry of Transportation, said that the order is required in order to allow the Haifa municipality to implement the plan approved in September 2016, in which the city marked a clean air zone with road signs. and not through a subpoena.
MK Dov Hanin, chairman of the sub-committee of the Economic Committee for Public Transportation, mentioned that the amendment was intended to implement a law he passed in 2008, and only 10 years later the first plan of the Haifa municipality arrives.
"I come to this discussion very angry. 1,100 people die every year in Israel as a result of air pollution from transportation - much more than the deaths in traffic accidents or from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - which means that since the enactment of the law, 11,000 people have died because nothing happened and no one used their powers. If this is not A scandal. I don't know what a scandal looks like. I'm complaining to the local authorities, who didn't do their job, but the main responsibility lies with the state. The law gave the Ministry of Transportation the authority to declare roads essential and run a plan on them by itself, and the ministry did announce a long list of routes in the block Discusses as essential ways, but what does he propose to save 11,000 people? To limit traffic between 12:00 and 14:00 and even that is not implemented. It is called working as if and not taking seriously the legislator's desire to really deal with air pollution from transportation."
The CEO of the organization of transportation companies, Shuki Sade, said that "as soon as it is not possible to bring private buses into the city centers, this will have a serious meaning. He added that solutions need to be found in parking places for these buses outside the city."
Chairman of the Council of Carriers and Drivers, Gavi Ben Harosh, Said that in Ayalon There is a sign that prohibits the entry of vehicles over 12 tons between the hours of 12:00 and 14:00, but what happens is that the trucks bypass Ayalon and travel inside the city. These bans do not contribute anything and trucks that park on the sidelines and wait for the time of the ban to pass only endanger the public"
The Knesset's Economy Committee, chaired by MK Eitan Kabel, today approved an amendment to the traffic order, which was submitted by the Ministry of Transportation and is intended to allow local authorities to carry out enforcement to reduce air pollution from transportation through fines. The approval of the order will allow the Haifa Municipality, which has already prepared a plan to reduce air pollution from transportation in the city, to Enforcement through fines.
According to the plan, polluting vehicles will be prohibited from entering areas marked with signs. The arrangement will apply in the first stage to vehicles with a diesel engine weighing over 3.5 tons - mainly buses, minibuses and light and heavy trucks, and in the second stage also to diesel vehicles weighing under 3.5 tons.
