Leave the Smoke Belching to Us

Searching for ways to cut air pollution in Los Angeles, Unocal Corp. got a lot of attention by paying $700 cash to motorists who turned in their old, smoke-belching cars.

But in Budapest, you’ll get a bus pass.

The city government of Hungary’s capital announced Tuesday that it would give two- or three-year public transportation passes to drivers willing to turn in their notoriously noxious Trabant and Wartburg cars, both made during the low environmental consciousness of the communist era.

The $24-million program is aimed at ridding the city of the last of an estimated 120,000 surviving East Bloc vehicles.