New Curbs on Cars

Throughout most of this century, the American's private automobile has been a vehicle of personal freedom, of both convenience and romance. Now the whole era of the open road may be ending—or at least fading—because of a document entitled the Clean Air Amendments of 1970.

By this act, in the name of public health, Congress has set strict federal limits on key air pollutants across the nation. During a period that started last week and will continue until a Feb. 15 deadline, every state must report how it plans to obey the federal standards for carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and photochemical oxidants—all of which come mainly from cars. Detroit is already working to cut these emissions sharply, but even if the automakers develop highly effective antipollution devices by 1975, there will still be so many old cars on the road that the problem will last until the mid-1980s. In 28 auto-jammed metropolitan areas with 30% of the U.S. population, therefore, the law's mandate is painfully simple: local officials must figure out ways to restrict the use of the car. After their "transportation strategies" are announced, citizens can express their views in public hearings. After that, the plans go to the Environmental Protection Agency for approval, and they must go into effect by 1977.

Gas Rationing. The most startling of the strategies is to be announced in the city that has by far the worst smog problem: Los Angeles. State officials despaired—the city is almost completely dependent on cars for transportation—and they asked the EPA to help provide an answer for them. Meantime two nearby cities filed suit for faster action, and the court ruled that EPA Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus would have to reveal his proposal for L.A. this week. With no time to develop a really workable plan, he is expected to announce an unprecedented interim expedient: World War II-style rationing that would reduce gasoline consumption by over 80% during the smoggiest six months of the year.

When word of this drastic proposal leaked out, the Los Angeles Times editorialized: "That our cars have made a health-harming and aesthetic mess of things is undeniable. But calling a screaming halt to auto use would be more destructive still." Los Angeles' neighbors disagree. The cities of Riverside and San Bernardino, which filed the suit to speed EPA action, are suffocating under a pall of Los Angeles' pollutants; they lie at the end of a natural funnel east of L.A.—and the prevailing winds blow from the west. Says their lawyer, Mary Nichols: "They see the Clean Air Act as their only hope."

Other cities do not have to go to the extreme of gas rationing, but their own transportation plans will undoubtedly change old, freewheeling ways. In general, TIME found in roundup interviews last week, the cities count on three simultaneous measures. They will improve mass-transit systems (mainly bus) by buying new equipment and reserving highway lanes for express buses to the suburbs. They will require that old cars be "retrofitted" with devices to reduce exhaust emissions. Finally, they will encourage car pools by incentives such as free trips through toll gates.

Some of the other plans: