Increase in Vehicles Hurts Carless-Day Plan

The “Day Without a Car” program is losing some of its effectiveness because the number of vehicles in the city is growing, Ramon Ojeda Mestre, the city’s top ecology official, reported.

The program keeps 500,000 vehicles, or one-fifth of the total, off the street daily, Monday through Friday, “although it must be clarified that this number has been reduced by the natural increase in automobiles,” Ojeda said Monday.

Each car is assigned one day a week on which it cannot circulate. Because fines for violations are high and cars driven on their off day are impounded for 24 hours, compliance has been high. However, some people have acquired additional cars, many of them old, to circumvent the rule.