The city, long regarded as the symbol of Polish smog, is becoming a European leader in the fight for clean air. Three years after banning coal heating in households, the authorities keep up the momentum and focus on car emissions. Krakow will be the first city in the region to have a Low Emission Zone.
Ten years ago, Krakow's Smog Alert organisation was created to fight air pollution in the city. It opened eyes to the health effects of smog and led to a change in attitudes toward polluted air in the capital of Malopolska and over time, the rest of the country. Residents knew about the problem before but eventually stopped ignoring it and began to demand systemic changes.
Krakow’s poor air quality has become famous in Poland and beyond the country. Hence, for example, the startup Airly, which measures air pollution, emphasised its krakovian roots as it began expanding into foreign markets. For years, the media highlighted the city's unfortunate location in the basin of the Vistula River and its old buildings as factors contributing to high pollution levels. However, it soon became apparent that other places in Poland, especially in the southern part, had similar problems, and Krakow was simply the first to speak out and demand change.
Fighting fossil fuels is not enough
The so-called anti-smog resolution, a regulation prohibiting the heating of buildings with coal and wood, went into effect in Krakow in September 2019. It applies to private homes as well as business or public facilities.
The results were quick to show. Krakow dropped out of the "smog city" list, a yearly ranking of the most polluted places in Poland published by the Polish Smog Alert (a coalition of local movements for clean air). The authors of this year's edition even noted that thanks to changes in recent years, concentrations of particulate matter and carcinogenic benzopyrene in Krakow had fallen by as much as 45 per cent.
At the same time, low-stack emissions from the areas surrounding Krakow, so-called ‘doughnut’, remain a problem for air quality in the city. There, the smog resolution is not in force, but polluted air disregarding administrative borders flows into the city. In an agglomeration of one million inhabitants and several hundred thousand vehicles, car emissions remain a challenge, especially in terms of nitrogen oxides, the primary source of which is still transport – according to a report by the Supreme Audit Office, accounting for 75% of NOx in Warsaw and Krakow. The measuring station at Krasińskiego Avenue in Krakow, one of Poland's busiest streets, has recorded the highest annual concentration of nitrogen oxides and PM10 in the country, as well as the highest number (105) of smog days.
Krakow has established the first Low Emission Zone
The city authorities made their first attempt to reduce car traffic in Krakow's historic district of Kazimierz in 2019. At the time, there was no legal basis for a real Low Emission Zone (LEZ), so a pilot zone was tested for some time. However, there were many exceptions to its requirements. In practice, the pilot thus proved ineffective and ceased functioning after a few months.
At the end of 2021, an amendment to the law allowed Polish municipalities to create Low Emission Zones based on vehicle emissions, as it is in Western Europe. Krakow’s authorities were the country's first to use this gateway. And in spring 2022, they presented the first draft of the LEZ. After two public consultations and a long legislative process, the Krakow City Council adopted the resolution at the end of November.
Based on feedback from residents and previous experience, it was decided to make the Zone less restrictive but cover a larger area than the original project. As a result, the entire city of Krakow will become a Low Emission Zone. By mid-2026, when the project's second stage comes into force, the oldest vehicles, which currently account for about 20 percent of car traffic in the city, will be phased out. Owners of sub-standard cars will have up to three and a half years to replace them with newer ones. It is important, above all, for residents to be able to prepare calmly for the changes taking place. It is worth noting that in the first phase of the LEZ, i.e. from 1 July 2024, the regulations will only cover 1 percent of vehicles on the city's streets (according to 2019 and 2021 data). This will give city authorities and drivers time to prepare for the new target requirements.
So far, residents are mostly in favour of the new rules entering the city (in a July 2022 opinion poll. 54 percent of people from Krakow are in favour of implementing a Low Emission Zone), and local and national media describe the changes mainly in a neutral or positive tone. So it looks like Krakow is the first to find a way to adapt the LEZ concept to Central European realities. The solutions developed in the Malopolska capital will likely be replicated in other cities across Poland. Warsaw, which is also preparing to introduce a Low Emission Zone in 2024, is already following the path set by Krakow.