Marvin Rees has appealed to residents to use public transport around Bristol or face being charged to drive their cars.
The mayor issued a “call to action” as Bristol City Council gathers evidence that it can reduce traffic air pollution to within legal limits without motorists having to pay to enter a clean air zone (CAZ).
It must submit its final plans by next February, which must include a CAZ which charges polluting vehicles unless it can prove by then it has found a quicker way to tackle roadside nitrogen dioxide (NO2).
The authority hopes to do this by sustaining better air quality seen during lockdown because of changes to work patterns and movements around the city, combined with “fast-track” measures it has introduced to encourage people to take up active travel and public transport.
These include the pedestrianisation of the Old City, closing Bristol Bridge and Baldwin Street to through-traffic and new temporary cycle lanes which Bristol City Council intends to make permanent following consultation.
But the mayor told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday (September 1) that more people needed to ditch the car for buses and trains if there was any hope of avoiding a charging zone, which he said would heap more financial misery on residents and businesses already struggling from the pandemic.
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He said: “We need to use this opportunity for people to transition onto public transport.
“We can have conversations with our bus providers to facilitate that and make sure people can do it in a safe way.
“But that transition also helps us build the longer-term case for the mass transit system that we’re also bringing through.
“This really is a call to action. This is not something that the council can deliver alone, this is about us as a city collectively engaging in behaviour change in the way we move around.
“If we collectively engage in that behaviour change, we can get ourselves to compliance in the shortest possible time in a way that does not further compound the economic woes faced by households and businesses in Bristol.”
He said air quality had already fallen to acceptable levels because of lockdown.
“We believe that if we can find a way of locking in those benefits then we could potentially get to our clean air compliance without having to charge or ban certain vehicles,” Mr Rees said.
“We are about to move into the biggest economic depression in 300 years.
“Households and businesses are going to come under intense pressure and if we can get compliance without further worsening their finances, that is good for Bristol.”
He said the council would continue to pursue two charging options as back-ups because they were required by government if it could not be proved that NO2 levels could be reduced without them.
These are a small charging zone for all non-compliant vehicles, including private cars, (small CAZ D) or the combination of a small CAZ D with a medium-sized charging zone for non-compliant commercial vehicles (medium CAZ C).
“But our hope is that with the work we’re doing to change the way we move, and move people onto public transport, then we can avoid the charging,” Mr Rees said.
“This is a time for us to make an appeal to people all across Bristol and our neighbouring authorities who commute in and out of Bristol to work with us to begin to change the way we move around Bristol – make better use of active travel, walking and cycling, and make use of our public transport offers which are being enhanced.
“Our non-charging plan which we think is more radical, would actually clean up air quality quicker anyway which is ultimately going to be the test against which we are measured.”
The council proposed a ban on diesel cars last year but was overruled by the Government.
It must have a clean air scheme in place by October 29, 2021.
Whether it is a charging or non-charging zone, it must provide the fastest route to compliance with legal NO2 limits, and must achieve that by 2023.
