Vehicle exhaust emissions – one of main sources of air pollution in Almaty
Dossayev says 30% of emissions accounts for public transport exhausts.
«Unfortunately, out of 250,000 vehicles, sometimes 300,000, entering the city, 80% do not comply with any environmental standards. We participated in a governmental meeting and after the Prime Minister’s trip, we agreed on a joint work of the Ministry of Ecology, Almaty administration and maslikhat to strengthen control of the quality of fuel and lubricants and technical inspection of vehicles,» the Mayor said.
«One of the measures offered was to restrict the entry of vehicles into the city. But I said that we need to get ready for such a measure. Daytime population of Almaty is 2 million 700 thousand people, give or take 500,000. Some are working in Almaty,» he stressed.
He criticized poor developed public transport and poor communication with Almaty agglomeration.
«For this reason, we cannot restrict transport entry. If we complete the projects on multi-modal transport stations constructions, this will enable us to improve the quality of public transport,» he said.
Deputy Mayor Askar Amrin added that the municipal administration planned to develop high-speed transport and multi-modal transport stations at the city borders.
As many as 250,000 vehicles enter Almaty on a daily basis and 50,000 of them remain in the city. Such daily migration contributes also to air pollution. Therefore, the implementation of our project on creation of four multi-modal transport stations will let reduce the number of vehicles entering Almaty from 250,000 to 130,000 and get rid of 1,500-2,000 tons of annual emissions we breathe in,» Amrin emphasized.
Other air pollution sources include emissions from coal-fired power plants and industrial enterprises as well as insufficient gasification of the city.
To date, Almaty has been gasified almost by 96%.