Solutions : the
tried....
It’s not as if solutions have not been tried. However, most solutions have been
technological, aiming to improve the car machinery in one way or another — cleaner
fuel, less emissions, better vehicle maintenence.Improvements like catalytic convertors, which the Indian government is actively
promoting, have certainly reduced emissions. However as the sheer number of cars has
increased so much, the net result is about the same amount of pollution.
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Solutions have been tried. Many
different ones. They’ve tried to improve the car. But not addressed the main problem.
Too many cars. |
The search for alternative clean fuels like
methanol has developed its own problems, e.g. ozone formation in the lower levels of the
atmosphere.
The construction of more roads and highways has
attracted more cars. As research proves, with more roads, more people tend to shift from
public transportation to cars. New roads also mean new developments along these roads,
leading to more traffic congestion. As early as 1988, a California Department of
Technology study announced that no amount of further road building could solve the traffic
congestion problem.
Most larger cities in industrialised
nations e.g. Chicago, have about a third of their land area under roads and parking lots
— a land use pattern most cities can ill afford. If China were to match the US in
parking land per capita, China would have to give up about 40% of its area now under
crops. An option, that China or any other Third World country does not have.
The total cost
of congestion on US roads alone is about $100 billion annually |
AUTOFACTS
 China and India have about 38% of the world’s
people but 0.5% of its automobiles.
 In USA, the world’s most car friendly country,
the average person drives or rides about 12,000 miles per year in cars and light trucks.
Urban Americans use motor vehicles to make 82% of
their trips (compared to 48% for the Germans, 47% for the French and 42% for the Danes).
The city administration of Palo Alto, California,
pays its employees seven cents a mile for all business travel by bicycle. The city also
has a monthly ‘Leave Your Car at Home Day’ and a police bicycle squad.
A 1980 study in UK calculated that if just 10% of
car trips under 10 miles were made by bicycles, the country would save 14 million barrels
of oil per year.
In 1983 Mayor Augusto Ocampo of Bogota started a
programme by which 56 km of arterial roads were closed to motor traffic each Sunday. Only
cycling, skating or strolling were allowed on these roads.
An
average American spends four of his sixteen waking hours driving his car or athering
resources for it — Ivan Illich, philosopher.
 So slow is the average traffic
speed at peak hours in some cities, ranging from 8-10 kmph, that traffic policemen use
bicycles for patrolling their beats — even in cities like Los Angeles or London.
In Delhi, Calcutta and Kanpur, the air pollution level exceeds the
WHOlimits by five times.
Bombay has half of
India’s taxis and one fifth of its private vehicles, and a rapidly increasing number
of deaths due to cardiovascular diseases. |
Many cars in
Brazil run on ethanol, a fuel which is made from sugarcane! |
...and yet to be tested
Have we really done all we could have done to check
the vehicle menace and its attendent problems. Look around you and see how many of the
following suggestions are being implemented in the areas you move around in. The government could take steps to ensure that car drivers pay the full cost of driving. Right now most
countries subsidise the cost of transport by controlling prices of petroleum. They are
also not charging the full cost of construction and maintenance of infrastructure eg.
roads, parking lots etc. All social, environmental and health costs should be included in
the cost of running a car.
The improvements in
technology could be strictly implemented and monitored. Just as classes have
monitors to keep the students in control, the roads too need such monitors to punish
polluting vehicles. More than 80% of the world’s cars are manufactured by just 14
companies. If these 14 companies could be made to follow strict pollution control
measures, a huge amount of pollution could be controlled.
 A policy encouraging the use of electrically
driven vehicles could be drawn up. Electricity leaves no residue, and in what
would be great news for most countries, would cut their oil import bills drastically.
Fast cars excite, no doubt. But cars are also
less efficient at higher speeds, and they cause more accidents. Speed
regulations could therefore help a lot.
 Improved public transport is
necessary, which can provide inexpensive and fairly comfortable transport at affordable
prices.
Steps like car pooling,
biking and using only public transport on certain
days would help. You could possibly ask your parents to share the car with some neighbours
going the same way.
 Better road maintenance, rationing of fuels like petrol or diesel, banning cars
on various routes, especially during office hours would help.
Staggering of office hours i.e. not letting all offices
open at around the same time, will distribute the traffic load on the roads over a longer
time. This will especially help during office hours.
Banning of car ads, like those of cigarettes, might help. Many countries in
Europe have already done so, quite succcessfully.
 Tighter parking restrictions could
be an answer to overcrowding in busy commercial areas. Put up a ‘NO PARKING’
sign in front of your house.
Governments could actively promote non-motorised forms of transport. Reducing the risk
factor for cyclists, providing separate lanes and parking lots for them, provide loans for
bicycle purchase amongst the poor and greater research into producing better cycles would
help.
Various countries are using a variety of alternate fuels, from ethanol to CNG. We too could do
something similar. |
Bicycles in Asia
alone transport more people than all the world's automobiles |
| Some things that YOU CAN DO right now, on your own. USE
non-motorised forms of transport for your daily needs, e.g. for going to school ( if it is
nearby, of course), going to a friends’ house, to the market or to play as far as
possible.
ENCOURAGE folks at home to make less use of vehicles for their work. Use whatever tactics
necessary if they are unwilling to listen to your at-first-polite requests — throw
awful tantrums (for ideas, look up books, consult friends, hook on to the net or write to
us!), go on strike (a study strike maybe, your parents would respond to that). When your
parents are planning to buy a new car, ask them to go for the ‘cleanest’ one,
even if it is not their first choice.
SPREAD awareness about the harmful effects of automobiles. Put up charts,
posters, slogans, wear/give a no smoking T shirt to someone planning to buy a new car, get
a separate environment bulletin board installed in your class. Put up posters at home too.
CONVINCE others. Invite non-believers. Take a white sock from your mom. Ask someone to
run the car for five minutes while you hold the sock over the tailpipe. Identifying the
colour will not be too difficult, we trust |
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You could be driving
these vehicles in the future. |
Future
Options |
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A
Down To Earth Supplement
