Thanks to Greener Buses and Fewer Cars in the City: Londoners Breathe Cleaner Air

Thanks to new policies implemented in London since 2016, the air got much cleaner: the city is now on track to meet legal levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) everywhere by 2025.

“Today’s report confirms the transformative impact that my policies have had on our toxic air crisis,” says Mayor Sadiq Khan. “The changes in NO2 in central London were some of the fastest that we’ve ever measured” in 30 years of monitoring,” says Dr Gary Fuller, an air pollution expert at Imperial College London. “These successes show that our city’s air pollution is not an intractable problem.”

The measures taken to cut air pollution include blocking dirty vehicles from having access to the center of the city, putting low-emission buses on the dirtiest routes, and increasing the number of protected spaces for cycling. According to the report, 44,000 fewer dirty vehicles have access to central London than in 2017, when charges for polluting vehicles were enforced.