The real culprits in transport pollution

Once more Martin Seychell (July 27) tries to shift the blame on to private motor cars when the real polluters are our old buses and heavy commercial vehicles. The big worry, we are now told, is excess nitrogen oxides in our air caused by too many private cars.

Mr Seychell’s argument is based on the outdated assumption that diesel vehicles pollute less because diesel delivers more mileage per litre than petrol. This is fundamentally wrong because diesel exhaust emissions are inherently more dangerous than those of petrol. There are many reasons why the black smoke emitted by practically every bus and heavy goods vehicle should constitute serious grounds for concern.

The adverse health impact of nitrogen oxides are benign in comparison to the dangerous effects of toxic particulates emitted by diesel engines and there is no evidence that these have any effect on mortality. On the other hand, extensive surveys have demonstrated beyond doubt that exposure to diesel particulates is responsible for severe health consequences which include heart and lung disease, cancer and retarded lung development in growing children. All of these result in shortened life spans in urban dwellers exposed to diesel pollution. It is therefore misleading to mention only the less harmful of the pollutants and omit dangerous particulates so long as our buses continue to belch toxic black smoke in peoples’ faces in our narrow streets.

Buses and heavy goods vehicles have larger engines and travel many more kilometers per day than private vehicles. Such vehicles emit smoke and pollute because they have old engines which are often badly maintained or even tampered. These vehicles may also be running on illegal high sulphur fuel. Yet no action is taken against them.

Private transport only contributes a mere 10 per cent of toxic particulates in our air (and not 58 per cent as originally misquoted in the November 2009 Emissions Inventory). The bottom line is this: while private cars undoubtedly contribute to pollution, the real big elephant in the room is the abundant toxic, particulate-rich smoke from most buses and heavy goods vehicles. It is this that must be urgently addressed.

This is not to say that private car use is to be encouraged. On the contrary, something must be done about our huge number of cars which now exceeds 300,000. Apart from our appalling record of road accidents and fatalities, the health consequences of lack of physical activity alone justify steps to get people to leave their car at home and walk, cycle or use public transport. People who own cars should drive them responsibly and not use them unnecessarily.

Given our present situation, “curbing cars” is a prodigious challenge. Decades of building roads to squeeze in more and more cars while omitting the needs of pedestrians has meant that much of Malta’s public space has been given over to cars. Our road environment is so pedestrian-unfriendly that walking or cycling are not encouraged.

This has added ill-health from lack of physical exercise to that from pollution. To compound the problem, over half a century of neglect of public transport has resulted in such a shabby service that few people contemplate using it.

Something has to give or the car is here to stay. As things now stand, Malta continues to encourage car use with bigger and wider roads. For instance, Transport Malta will soon indulge in the unnecessary extravagance of an un-needed stretch of four-lane coast road. This, of course will encourage car use (not to mention speeding) further.

There is, however, a silver lining to the black polluting smoke emitted by our old buses. If Malta awards the public transport contract to Arriva, it seems that our transport will run on cleaner, up-to-date EUR V buses and not outdated second-hand buses. Let us keep our fingers crossed.

For more information read the Think Tank report Towards A Low Carbon Society – the Nation’s Health, Energy Security and Fossil Fuels (www.tppi.org.mt/cms/index.php/reports).