Use school buses to help fight smog

While we only come to Pakistan twice a year, every time we do so the degradation of air quality is palpable. Although we, and our children, are only subjected to breathing the toxic Lahore air for a couple of weeks at a time, one hates the thought of much of our family, and millions of others, being subjected to this alarming level of air quality, year in and year out.

During the winter months the recurrent smog problem is getting worse, and is apparently not confined to Lahore either, as it is affecting much of Punjab and upper Sindh. While a government of Punjab video is being widely circulated which primarily blames slash-and-burn practices of Indian farmers, the toxic smog is due to a range of factors. The ‘trans-boundary’ effect of some Middle Eastern countries being hit by sandstorms are also a part of the problem.

While we can create some diplomatic fuss about Indian burning of crop wastes, there is little that we can do about dust storms originating far away, or about increasingly unpredictable precipitation levels. There are, however, a host of other associated factors which are within our capacity to address.

Unchecked industrial pollution, haphazard construction projects, bad quality fuel, lack of control over emissions, and a growing number of motor vehicles on the road are issues which we need to be paying most attention to.

The frenzied road widening across Lahore has led to thousands of trees being cut, removing a natural carbon sink. It is encouraging that tree plantation is getting a bit more attention, and it would be good to see more indigenous trees being planted, which have greater carbon absorption capacity, rather than the usual ornamental varieties which carry a host of problems.

While the government seems to be taking the issue of unfit vehicles plying the roads more seriously, at least for now, the sheer number of cars on our roads continues to grow. Suggestions that the government mandate use of low-sulphur diesel and increase public transport use have yet received scant attention.

Whether expensive mass transit projects like the Lahore Orange Line Metro Train and the recently implemented Lahore Metro Bus will sufficiently ameliorate the situation remains to be seen.

The Punjab government has the ability to enforce any number of mandates it sees as important. The mass shooting at the Army Public School in Peshawar led to Lahore schools being compelled to raise their boundary walls, at their own cost, to government mandated heights. The smog problem that gets worse year after year should be treated similarly as a national threat that requires drastic action, and one such measure would be mandating the use of school buses or vans for all schools, public and private instead of using cars and other motor vehicles to carry their students back and forth.

The implied cost of running school buses remains an obvious deterrent for public and private schools.

Encouraging use of public transport can be adopted gradually. Several elite private schools already have the capacity to transport a small proportion of their students to and from school. They could be nudged to increase the proportion of students that are required to use school buses, based on a gradual expansion of routes that can be serviced by them. Many less affluent parents are already paying private sector transporters to take their children to school, and would welcome the option of a school bus instead. The government could look towards donor funding to provide school buses for public schools, and it can also arrange for police escorts to address the security concern.

Mandating use of school buses may not be enough to combat smog alone, but it will help raise citizens’ awareness of the issue, and it would significantly reduce rush-hour traffic, and help cut overall emissions, which citizens of cities like Lahore are currently being forced to inhale.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 17^th, 2017.

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