20 Jun Air District Kicks Off Old Vehicle Buyback Program

Have an old car? The Bay Area Air Quality Management District might pay you $1,500 to take it off your hands — and to get its smog off the streets. (Photo by Olivier Brugger on Unsplash)

By Bay City News

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is offering people cash for their old, smoggy cars.

The Air District’s Vehicle Buy Back Program will give people $1,500 starting in July for turning over vehicles made in 1998 or before.

“The Vehicle Buy Back Program gives residents an incentive to scrap older, more polluting vehicles to help improve regional air quality and reduce climate-warming emissions,” Air District executive Officer Philip Fine said in a statement Tuesday.

To qualify, vehicles must be from 1998 or before, currently registered as operable in the Bay Area for the past 24 months and drivable.

Also, vehicles that need a smog check within two months must take and pass one, according to BAAQMD officials.

The program has taken 95,000 cars, vans, pickup trucks and SUVs off the road since 1996.

More information about the buy back program can be found here www.baaqmd.gov/vbb.

California has a similar program for people with vehicles that can’t pass a smog check. More information about that program can be found here www.bar.ca.gov/consumer/consumer_assistance_program.

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