Florence Imposes Partial Traffic Ban
City officials permanently closed the historic center of Florence to most traffic Saturday to fight dangerously high noise and air pollution levels and protect its priceless heritage of Renaissance art and architecture.
In the ruling, city officials banned most automobile and bus traffic from an area of almost 692 acres that once was enclosed within medieval town walls.
City buses, taxis and two-wheeled vehicles were exempt and each household within the so-called blue zone, where 150,000 of the 600,000 Florentines live, will be issued one permit to drive directly to work or school and home.
Low pollution methane-fueled minibuses will shuttle tourists to and from the city center.
Graziano Cioni, a Communist city councilman who is in charge of traffic issues, said that the ban is permanent but that the city is prepared to make adjustments in its enforcement if necessary.
Florence is in a bowl surrounded by the Tuscan hills that trap the pollution caused by automobile exhausts. Experts blamed the seriously polluted air for the erosion of precious medieval and Renaissance monuments.
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