It's the end of an era for drivers of older vehicles in the Lower Mainland.

AirCare stations will shut down for good on New Year's Eve and come 2015 motorists will no longer line up to pay for mandatory emissions testing.

The requirement in order to get vehicle insurance in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley was widely seen by drivers as a costly nuisance, particularly as cars got cleaner and most vehicles passed without being forced to get a tune-up.

But defenders argue the provincial government was wrong to scrap the TransLink-operated program.

"We know air quality from vehicles has improved over the last 10 or 15 years because we've been monitoring vehicles," said Vancouver Coun. Heather Deal, chair of Metro Vancouver's environment and parks committee.

"It was a mistake to discontinue this program. It will endanger the incredibly positive impacts it's had over the years."

The province's environment ministry cited "great progress" in reducing air pollution from light duty vehicles as emissions technology improved and noted the AirCare failure rate has fallen from 14 per cent in 2007 to less than eight per cent.

No new program has been announced to replace AirCare, but the province is expected to release a discussion paper in the spring on possible options to cut pollution from heavy trucks.

Deal said she's hopeful something new comes to tackle diesel trucks because Metro testing on roads has found alarming emissions from some "gross emitters."

Dave Gourley, general manager of AirCare, said he "absolutely" believes Lower Mainland residents have breathed easier because AirCare enforced pollution limits for 22 years.

He notes nearly one million vehicles failed AirCare tests at some point since the program began in 1992. Most were repaired and returned to the road cleaner, while some others got early retirement.

So far this year more than 34,000 vehicles have failed AirCare, although that's down from a peak of around 120,000 vehicles a year in the mid-1990s.

Read more:

http://www.richmondreview.com/news/287044791.html

http://www.scienceclarified.com/Ph-Py/Pollution-Control.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/AirCare+pollution+control+program+...