WASHINGTON'S vehicle-emission testing was launched in noisy fashion and ended — or, more precisely, began to be phased out — quietly, without much fanfare.

That is the sound of success. Few people still talk about dirty cars because carbon monoxide and other emissions have declined dramatically.

Washington's testing program will be phased out during the next several years and be completely gone by 2020.

This may feel a bit like the rooster taking credit for the dawn. But the program worked because it required a lot of polluting cars to be fixed or parked. At the same time, auto technology advanced enough to make testing less necessary over time. In other words, the air would have gotten cleaner anyway as cars were built to increasingly stricter air-quality standards

In the early 1980s, the state, following federal clean-air rules, adopted the annoying but necessary emission-testing program. It's easy to forget: Seattle and environs were more polluted back then.

Newspaper clippings at the time quote citizens eager to do the right thing but who were slightly bothered by the extra task of testing and who were leery of the then-$10 fee.

Motorists in the immediate Seattle area, including the Eastside at first — and now including most of King, Pierce, Snohomish, Clark and Spokane counties — pay $15 to take an emission test when notified one is required. That fee and hassle will gradually go away.

Currently, vehicles are tested only when they are five years old and every other year after that. Newer cars, beginning with model year 2009, do not need to be tested because they meet stricter vehicle-emission standards.

Emission testing was one of those mundane tasks we all did for many years for the sake of cleaner air.

New technology and the state directing about 10 percent of cars to repair shops produced a different environmental story. The air is cleaner and we are all better off for it.