Last week Florence was the Italian city with the highest levels of smog, recording 37 micrograms of nitrogen dioxide per cubic meter.
This was announced by the European Environment Agency, which regularly publishes a map of European cities and their concentration of nitrogen dioxide, an air pollutant produced by traffic that causes respiratory problems.
After Florence, in Italy there were Genoa (32), Turin (28) and Cagliari (27). In contrast, Ancona reported only 6 micrograms.
The good news comes from Eurostat and concerns the EU capitals: on average, the concentration of nitrogen dioxide has dropped to 20 micrograms compared to 22 micrograms two years ago. But Rome, which reported 25 micrograms in June, is confirmed to be more polluted than the other capitals. The black jersey goes to Athens (39 micrograms), followed by Budapest (38) and Zagreb (27). At the other extreme, Tallinn (13), Lisbon (14) and Vienna (15).
The words of the mayor Nardella
“Last week Florence was the Italian city with the highest levels of smog, with 37 micrograms of nitrogen dioxide per cubic meter, as reported by the European Environment Agency. It is likely that this increase is also due to the fact that, due to the works on the A1, a lot of traffic has poured into the ordinary roads and therefore also onto the streets of the city. But the data is still worrying “.
This was stated by the mayor of Florence Dario Nardella, commenting on the data on air pollution.
Nardella reiterated that the city “needs profound changes in the mobility system and that our work in recent years is going in the right direction. We have already built 17 km of tram network in operation, 94 km of cycle paths and 9 km of lanes. cycle paths and in the last 5 years we have renewed the bus fleet by 55% with about 200 new vehicles. On the electricity front we have 410 electric vehicle charging points in the public area and 6 superfast charging stations reserved for taxis with the possibility of booking ; the sharing service is also active with 900 electric scooters, 600 electric scooters, 100 electric cars, the bike sharing service with 1,000 e-bikes and 2,000 standard bikes; and 72 new licenses for electric taxis and 226 hybrid taxis have been granted out of a total of 790 taxis. There is already a ban on polluting vehicles (up to Euro 4 diesel) in the historic center and in some sections of the ring road on public holidays wings from 8.30 to 18.30 “. Among the future projects, concluded the mayor, “there are the Green Shield, a low-emission zone extended to 66% of the surface of the town with 81 telematic gates and a ban on access up to Euro 4, a further 22 kilometers by tram. already designed and financed and 12 to be financed, the birth of the Smart City Control Room for the digital management of traffic flows, the implementation of the cycle network with another 10 kilometers of cycle paths and another 100 new charging stations “.