Over the past seven days, Tehran residents have woken up to see their city blanketed in thick smog.
On Tuesday, Tehran Mayor Pirouz Hanachi laid bare a fact that most were well aware off: Tehran’s only way out of the current crisis is to hope for the helping hand of Nature.
“If wind were to blow our way, the situation would improve,” he said.
The levels of toxic pollutants in Tehran’s air breached critical levels on Nov. 6 and so far Tehran Municipality and the government have failed to implement any measure to address the crisis effectively.
Hanachi referred to measures implemented in Tehran for addressing the crisis. The urban manager’s repertoire of crisis management measures has been limited to closing primary schools for a single day, increasing the traffic toll in central Tehran and cutting public transportation fares by half.
School closure would help prevent children’s exposure to toxic pollutants, but other measures have failed to deliver any results. Tehran’s streets remain outrageously clogged and the density of pollutants is moving only in one direction: up.
According to the mayor, representatives from Tehran City Council, Traffic Police, Tehran Municipality, Tehran Governorate and Department of Environment, along with those of interior and health ministries met during a special meeting of Air Pollution Emergency Committee on Sunday to reinstate measures for curbing air pollution.
To encourage private vehicle users to switch to public transport, bus and subway fares in the metropolis have been halved until further notice.
To reduce traffic in the central parts of the capital, charges paid by cars entering the zone demarcated by the Air Pollution Control scheme have been increased by 50%.
As per the scheme, each vehicle can enter a "restricted zone" in central Tehran for free for a maximum of 20 days each season. If motorists wish to enter the zone more than the number of times allowed in the plan, they need to pay a traffic toll fee. After the hike, the traffic toll has reached 700,000 rials ($6).
Spread over 88.5 square kilometers in central Tehran, the zone is bounded by Imam Ali Expressway in the east, Navvab Expressway and Chamran Highway to the west, Besat Expressway in the south and Hemmat Expressway in the north.
Vehicles are barred from entering the area between 6:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. on all days, except Fridays and national holidays. On Thursdays, the time limit is between 6:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.
On Tuesday, Tehran Mayor Pirouz Hanachi laid bare a fact that most were well aware off: Tehran’s only way out of the current crisis is to hope for the helping hand of Nature
But in addition to taking a toll on their health, the air pollution also has a financial impact on the capital’s dwellers.
Earlier, Behzad Ashjaei, an official with the Department of Environment, said breathing toxic emissions costs people in Tehran $2.6 billion per year, which means that air pollution inflicts a loss of $300 on each resident of the capital, ISNA reported.
The population of the capital city was over 8.6 million, according to the latest census statistics released by the government in 2016.
Air pollution takes its toll on the economy in several ways: it causes diseases and illnesses, reduces people’s ability to work, affects vital products like food, damages cultural and historical monuments, reduces the ability of ecosystems to perform functions societies need and costs money in remediation or restoration.
Air Quality Index
Based on a number of polluting factors, Air Quality Index categorizes conditions into good (0-50), moderate (51-100), unhealthy for sensitive groups (101-150), unhealthy (151-200), very unhealthy (201-300) and hazardous (301-500).
As of Nov. 6, the index has breached the 100 threshold and in many areas in Tehran, toxic pollutants topped 150.
A website dedicated to reporting the index, Airnow.tehran.ir, provides further information on Tehran’s weather conditions.
Since the beginning of the current Iranian year that started on March 21, one day was marked as unhealthy, 35 days as unhealthy for sensitive groups, 177 days as moderate and only 25 days as good.
With 26,000 annual deaths related to the weather condition, Iran ranks 16th in terms of air pollution-related deaths. Many of these deaths take place in Tehran because of its high population density and dismal air quality. However, no precise data are available.
Over the past few decades, as Tehran expands in all directions, mayor after mayor have failed to address the issue since the roots of the problem are deeper than polluting cars.
Millions of people work and live in Tehran. They all need decent transportation services. However, government and municipality coffers are lacking in funds when it comes to paying for upgrading or expanding public transportation services.
