Officials in Los Angeles are working on policies to stop the construction of new gas stations and it could become the largest city in the world to prohibit new fossil fuel infrastructure.
“We are ending oil drilling in Los Angeles. We are moving to all-electric new construction. And we are building toward fossil-fuel-free transportation,” said Paul Koretz, the LA council member who is working on the policy. “Our great and influential city, which grew up around the automobile, is the perfect place to figure out how to move off the gas-powered car.”
Whilst California is leading the rest of the country in the switch to green transportation, this is a titanic shift for LA, though, as it is a heavily car-reliant city. The proposal was inspired by Petaluma, California, a city in the Bay Area that was the first in the world to ban the construction of new gas stations. In a positive ripple effect, other nearby towns are following similar plans and also focusing on the expansion of green transportation.
“Our daily bad habits are destroying the natural systems we depend on to exist. It’s really up to cities to turn around climate change,” Shrader said. “If you have lung cancer you stop smoking. If your planet is on fire, you stop throwing gasoline on it.”
As one oberver noted in, frankly, a statement of the blindingly obvious: “The need to prohibit new gas stations is so clear. Why would we want more fossil fuel pollution and risk costly clean-up of more gas stations when we have enough, and when California won’t even have gas cars for sale by 2035?”