Mayor of Romanian town wants to introduce tax for cars registered in Bucharest

The mayor of Comarnic, a town in Prahova county, is determined to introduce vignettes for cars registered in Bucharest and Ilfov, claiming that, due to the traffic jams that usually form in the town, the residents breath polluted air, News.ro reported.

Comarnic is located on the DN1 national road linking Bucharest to the mountain resorts of Prahova Valley and Brasov, top tourist destinations especially for weekend gateways of Bucharesters. DN1 gets very crowded during weekends and vacations and Comarnic is one of the localities where traffic jams usually form.

Comarnic’s mayor Sorin Popa said that he has decided to follow Bucharest’s example and introduce a tax for cars registered in Bucharest and Ilfov that enter the town. He argued that the residents of Comarnic have been complaining for a long time about the polluted air they have to breath because of the traffic jams and huge queues of cars usually forming in the town at the end of the week.

“The level of pollution is as high as in Bucharest, because the cars are blocked in Comarnic for hours. Our town council will also adopt a decision, which is easy to do, through which we will impose vignettes for those in Bucharest and Ilfov. This way we will also bring some money to the budget,” Sorin Popa said, according to Ph-online.ro.

Bucharest mayor announced last week that the drivers of cars registered outside Bucharest and Ilfov will have to pay a tax to enter the capital starting next year. The measure is included in a project that was put up for public debate. According to the same project, polluting cars will also be banned in downtown Bucharest.

(Photo source: Wikipedia/Ondin Dinescu)