Rome to Tighten Driving Curbs in Anti-Smog Drive

The city council is toughening curbs on rush hour traffic in fume-choked downtown Rome and plans to appoint an extra 1,000 traffic police to ensure the capital’s anarchic motorists obey the law, officials said Friday.

Most cars and heavy trucks will be banned from the congested center of the capital in both morning and evening weekday rush hours from Feb. 1 in an extention of a year-old morning rush hour ban which has been widely ignored.

“We will not stop here,” Mayor Nicola Signorello told reporters after the new rules were approved during a marathon council meeting on Thursday. “If it’s not enough to close the center in the afternoons as well, even more drastic measures will be adopted.”

The plan follows threats by city magistrate Gianfranco Amendola to take the council to court for failing to curb alarming levels of pollution.

Traffic police regularly wear smog masks, and experts say pollution is destroying many of Rome’s ancient monuments.