Clean air

The public should demand that our politicians:

Reduce road traffic levels 10% by 2010. Tackle air pollution and climate change by redirecting at least two thirds of the £900 million planned for road-building to public transport, walking and cycling.

Why?
Air pollution, mainly from vehicle exhausts, kills more people in Scotland than die in road accidents. Too much traffic divides communities and degrades the environment, in rural as well as urban areas. Less traffic would mean fewer air pollution deaths, less congestion, less climate change, less social exclusion and less wildlife kill.

Background
Air pollution, mainly from vehicle exhausts, kills more people every year in Scotland than die in road accidents. Estimates put the number of deaths a year resulting from air pollution at 2000 - five times more than in road accidents.

In addition to being the second fastest growing source of carbon dioxide (the main climate change gas), toxic emissions from road traffic represent the principal threat to air quality in urban areas. Scotland’s traffic levels are set to grow by 27% over the next 20 years. This uncontrolled growth in traffic would result in worsening pollution and yet more air pollution deaths.

Despite the fact that over a third (34%) of Scotland’s households have no access to a car and are thus heavily reliant on public transport, since 1999 the Scottish Executive has prioritised £900 million to a new road building programme that will generate yet more traffic and pollution. This committed spending on new roads easily outstrips that committed to new public transport projects, cycling, walking and traffic calming projects.

Too much traffic divides communities and degrades the environment, in rural as well as urban areas. Less traffic would mean less air pollution deaths, less congestion costs to business, less climate change, less wildlife kill, and less social exclusion. The challenge for politicians is to deliver measures that will reduce, not increase, traffic levels.

Transport and Health

Air pollution from vehicle exhausts kills an estimated 2000 people every year in Scotland - five times more than in road accidents.
The Government has set ambitious targets to increase the amount of moderate physical activity – such as walking and cycling – taken by adults. The health benefits of taking regular physical activity are well established.
The Department of Health estimates that across the UK each year between 12,000 and 24,000 deaths, and between 14,000 and 24,000 hospital admissions, result from short-term exposure to air pollution.
One in every seven British children now has asthma, the fastest-growing non-infectious disease in the country. Children are more likely to suffer asthma attacks if they live in areas badly polluted with ozone.
According to the British Medical Association (BMA), strategies to reduce the harmful effects of motor cars such as emission controls will be “outweighed by projected increases in motor traffic” while proposals that reduce traffic could “lead to a broad range of health benefits.”
Scotland’s poor public health record could be improved if many more short journeys were made on foot or bike rather than by car. 27% of all journeys are less than one mile and 45% less than two miles – yet all too many of these are unnecessarily made by car.
Children from poorer households are over four times more likely to be knocked down, and the injuries they suffer tend to be of greater severity.

Transport and the Economy

The CBI estimates that delays caused by traffic jams and congestion costs the UK economy around £20 billion annually.
Air pollution impacts on agriculture. Staple crops like wheat, potatoes, peas and beans are all vulnerable to 20% declines in yield at relatively low levels of ozone.
A third of small businesses in Scotland claim that road congestion is seriously damaging their competitiveness.
Flooding in Scotland will increase by up to 20% over the next 80 years. More than 170,000 homes and major industrial sites are at risk from rising sea levels, increased rainfall and more frequent storms.
Public transport generates twice as many jobs per passenger kilometre as the car.
According to government figures motorists pay only a third to a half of the costs they impose on society (e.g. congestion, road crashes and impact on the environment, including noise, air pollution and climate change).
While the environmental and social benefits of reducing traffic levels are clear, leading advisers to the government (SACTRA) concluded that it is also possible to deliver traffic reduction without harming the economy.

Air facts

Without action, traffic levels in Scotland will grow by 27% cent over the next 20 years.
Emissions from road transport are responsible for 15% of carbon dioxide emissions. Road transport is the second fastest growing source of carbon dioxide, the main climate changing gas (number one is civil aviation).
Road transport now poses the principal threat to air quality in urban areas.
Motor vehicles are responsible for: 63.7% of benzene emissions, 71% of carbon monoxide emissions, 65.9% of lead emissions and 49.5% of nitrogen dioxide emissions.

Air pollution is not just an urban issue:

Air pollution, mainly from vehicles, has reached danger levels in half of Scotland, breaching safety limits, damaging wild flowers, crops and other plants across vast tracts of the country.
For some air pollutants (e.g. ozone) the highest concentrations are found in rural areas.

Roads to ruin:

Scottish Executive spending commitment to new trunk road building since November 1999 now totals £900m
Glasgow’s £250 million M74 motorway alone has been promised more money than all new sustainable transport projects received through the Public Transport Fund between 1998 and 2002 (£235 million).
over the past 25 years the UK Department for Transport have calculated that in real terms the cost of rail travel increased by 62%, bus and coach travel by 82% - yet motoring by only 1%.

Sources: Department of Health, Scottish Executive (various), British Medical Association, SEPA, National Asthma Campaign Scotland, Friends of the Earth, TRANSform Scotland, University of Leeds, CBI, UITP