CAN attended Friday’s Legco meeting between the Environmental and Transport Panels regarding the Transport Department’s proposal to rationalize bus routes in order to reduce air pollution. The objective of Friday’s meeting was to permit LegCo members to air their views on the proposal.

Here’s a recap of what was said by the 11 LegCo members who spoke today:

Every LegCo member with the exception of Miriam Lau (Transport Constituency) made the point that it was unacceptable for service and routes to be cut unless bus passengers were given SIGNIFICANT incentives to accept the resulting inconvenience. By “significant”, Kam Na Wai cited an example which suggested that an average fare concession of 25% would be reasonable if a bus rider was forced to make a transfer and wait an additional 15 minutes because of changes resulting from rationalization. By the same reasoning, any fare increase would be “totally unacceptable”, said Wong Kwok-Hing. The plight of the grassroots bus passenger was underscored by Wong and Andrew Cheng Kar-Foo. The former pointed out that these bus riders, who customarily spend hours every day commuting, were loath to give up point-to-point service because it would deprive them of, say, their ability to nap during the trip.

Considering the uncertain benefits and checkered results of the last set of rationalizations which took place from 2004-2009, Kam Na Wai pointed out that we should not overemphasize the gains to be made through rationalization. Rather, we should keep our eye firmly on the more effective method of reducing air pollution, early replacement of old buses.

As expected, several LegCo members emphasized the crucial importance of getting District Councils on board in advance of suggesting route or service reductions. Since the 1990s, District Councils have been the single greatest obstacle to bus route rationalization. In keeping with their raison d’etre, DCs fiercely protect the interests of their constituents. However as Cyd Ho Sau-lan pointed out, reductions should not be across the board but more finely tuned, with different districts requiring different approaches at different hours of the day. For that matter, Albert Chan Wai-Yip criticized the Government for not doing its homework, blasting the customary DC briefing paper on route rationalization as hopelessly inadequate because it fails to detail the specific proposals for each district. In an interesting twist of the argument, which reflects her base of support (i.e., the bus companies), Miriam Lau of the Transport Constituency said it would be good if districts tried to compete against each other for environmental benefits based on differential rationalization plans. Presumably, the implication of her suggestion (or, rather, hope) was that District Councillors might be motivated to approve greater cuts in service if they could show constituents that their district had netted more environmental benefits than other districts. Lau is LegCo’s greatest champion of rationalization, of course, since unnecessary excess bus capacity is economically inefficient for bus companies. “We have been fighting for greater efficiency for ten years,” she declared.

In contrast to Lau’s comments championing the cause of the bus companies, Gary Chan Hak-Kan asked, “Why is it the public who is always asked to pay? Why aren’t the bus companies being asked to pay?” Similarly, Cyd Ho commented, “The Transport Department’s LegCo paper seems like it’s been written by the bus companies.”

Well, to be perfectly honest, YES, it DOES seem that way! By the way, here is the actual paper, http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr09-10/english/panels/ea/papers/eatp0122cb1-916-1-e.pdf

Since the issue of bus route rationalization is arguably THE most controversial measure in the Government’s proposed package of 19 air pollution abatement measures, it is crucial to state CAN’s position clearly:

First, let’s not lose the forest for the trees: Kam Na Wai was totally correct to point out that the Government’s last rationalization effort was "unsuccessful". Thus, it remains imperative to clean up the bus fleet through the mandatory early replacement of buses. (At the close of the meeting, the Chairman of the Environment Panel requested more information about the exact environmental benefits of phasing out the oldest, most polluting buses. The Transport Department and EPD are slated to report back in May 2010. At that time, the two departments will also submit detailed proposals for each district, providing full information about affected routes, costs, suggested concessions and environmental benefits.) Bus route rationalization APPEARS to be the lowest hanging fruit, because it doesn’t require bus companies to incur capital investments, but, based on past experience, it’s obvious that bus route rationalization is arduous and uncertain. At best, rationalization, even if gets done within 5 years, will net marginal benefits.

Next, we agree that the bus rider – ESPECIALLY the grassroots bus rider – must NOT be asked to bear the price of rationalization through higher bus fares. Remember, air pollution is a social justice issue, with the adverse health impacts of air pollution falling disproportionately on the members of society who can least afford medical care or relocation already. Small increases in bus fares for this group can have dramatic, adverse consequences on their livelihood. Moreover, it is true that this bus rider is already penalized by having to spend hours per day commuting. Grassroots bus riders SHOULD be fairly compensated through concessionary fares or free bus service for accepting the inconvenience of rationalization. A fair concession would be something along the lines mentioned by Kam Na Wai, 15-25%.

At the same time, we do support the Transport Department’s rationalization of routes duplicative of railway service and routes in the most highly trafficked areas.

At the end of the day, CAN will focus its efforts on those measures which will result in the most health benefit to the public. Thus, we will continue to strongly emphasize early replacement of old buses over bus route rationalization. While we do support a reduction in buses on those corridors blighted with the most roadside emissions, we consider widespread rationalization to be somewhat beside the point. If confronted with the choice, we would be willing to dispense with rationalization entirely if we could have cleaner buses on Hong Kong’s roads. We would make that choice any day. And we continue to believe that this is the RIGHT and best choice for the Hong Kong people.

Below is a list of the LegCo members who spoke at Friday’s meeting. Where they made some interesting additional remarks, I included them next to their name:

Name: WONG Kwok-hing
Functional/Geographic: NT West
Political affiliation: FTU
Rationalization resulting in ANY increase of fares will not be tolerated; it will be impossible to "steamroll" DCs on this.

Name: Andrew CHENG Kar-foo
Functional/Geographic: NT East
Political affiliation: Democratic Party
A long time proponent of sectional fares -- fares payable according to distance/stops -- he talked about why especially now they would prevent wasted bus capacity.

Name: KAM Nai-wai
Functional/Geographic: HK Island
Political affiliation: Democratic Party

Name: LI Fung-ying
Functional/Geographic: Labour
Political affiliation: HKFLU
What about bus drivers? During the last round of rationalization, 300 buses (and jobs) were lost. Any rationalization plan must study the consequences on the labor force.

Name: WONG Yung-kan
Functional/Geographic: Agriculture and Fisheries
Political affiliation: DAB
She made the point that, as more and more people move to the New Territories, there will be more, not less, demand for point-to-point service. It is the vehicles which are the problem, rather than the service. (We agree, of course!)

Name: Miriam LAU Kin-yee
Functional/Geographic: Transport
Political affiliation: Liberal Party
Besides her remarks above, she repeatedly emphasized the importance of knowing the specific environmental benefits to each district.

Name: CHAN Hak-kan
Functional/Geographic: NT East
Political affiliation: DAB
He brought up examples of successful Public Transport Interchange schemes, which illustrated how to successfully encourage hub & spoke transfers. The best way, free bus service on the "spoke", to the final destination, after transfer at the hub.

Name: Cyd HO Sau-lan
Functional/Geographic: HK Isalnd
Political affiliation: Civic Act-up
In the proposal, no thought has been given to the issue of parking: if buses' frequency is cut, that means a lot of them will have to wait somewhere between trips. That requires an allocation of public space, which the TD hasn't factored into their plan.

Name: CHAN Kin-por
Functional/Geographic: Insurance
Political affiliation: NA
Perhaps minibuses can replace service where routes truncated.

Name: Albert CHAN Wai-yip
Functional/Geographic: NT West
Political affiliation: League of Social Democrats

Name: IP Wai-ming
Functional/Geographic: Labour
Political affiliation: HKFTU
"Let's not forget the drivers."

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Yesterday's New York Times' Green Inc. article redeems that paper's previous coverage of Hong Kong's air pollution problem. The article previous to yesterday's was, to our view, one-sided and irresponsible because, by reprinting verbatim the comments of an official EPD spokesperson without remarks from any other concerned parties, readers were given the impression that Hong Kong's air pollution is not THAT bad. Of course, you can imagine that, considering the stature and authority of the NY Times, we considered such an article downright dangerous. Anyway, we were hugely relieved to see the RIGHT FACTS about Hong Kong air pollution published yesterday. WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO READ TODAY'S NY TIMES ARTICLE PLUS THE ARTICLE WHICH TRIGGERED IT.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/author/reenita-malhotra-hora/

Below, too, is our original full rebuttal of Eva Wong's statement to the NY Times, from which they chose today's quotes. After reading it, you will understand why we found the EPD's statements so grossly disingenuous --

"My first reaction to the EPD's response is that the entire thing is, by definition, a load of bunkum because their responses are based on defending the numerous exceedances of the HK API which permits levels far in excess of those recommended by the WHO. The WHO Air Quality Guidelines were expressly formulated to protect public health. In their statement accompanying the announcement of the latest guideline revision (2006), the WHO made it clear that adverse impacts to human health are being found at ever lower levels of air pollution and that, in the case of respirable particles, for example, there are no levels below which harm to human health has not been found. Thus, in the medical-scientific community, these guidelines are considered the minimum acceptable standards for protecting public health. Even then, the WHO does not consider the observance of the AQGs as some sort of magic shield against harm to human health.

Hong Kong's present Air Quality Objectives (AQOs) severely lag the WHO's Air Quality Guidelines (AQGs). Whereas HK's 24-hour AQO for SO2 is 350 micrograms per cubic meter, the WHO AQG is 20; HK's PM10 AQO(24-hour) is 180 while the WHO's AQG is 50. The annual average guideline for NO2 is 80 in HK and 40 under the WHO.

Hong Kong's current AQOs have not been revised since 1987. Obviously, epidemiological and community medicine research on the health impacts of air pollution have evolved considerably since then. The present regime is sadly outdated.Regarding the EPD's citation of other countries' standards as a benchmark against which to judge Hong Kong's, I have three points to make. First, in the case of air pollution and protecting public health, comparison between nations is less important than assessment of standards based on the latest medical research. By these standards, the present AQOs permit 1100 avoidable deaths per year.Second, let's compare the actual air quality of other cities against HK's. In 2006, Hong Kong's air was 3x more polluted than New York's and 1.7x dirtier than Singapore's. Third, when it comes to fighting air pollution, the attitude of the Hong Kong Government bears no resemblance to, say, America's. Obama has granted broad remit to the EPA to tighten air quality standards during his term. Just this past month, the EPA has proposed a tougher standard for ozone as well as significant limitations on emissions from large marine vessels which will have far-reaching health and economic benefits for the American people, despite their short-term cost of several billion dollars. The EPA's proposals were no doubt based on a recognition of the latest scientific and medical research and made in spite of opposition from vested interests in the business community.

As for reductions in roadside emissions cited by the EPD spokesperson, over the period of 1997-2008, according to Professor AJ Hedley, one of the world's leading air pollution experts, the cumulative reduction for PM was only 12.3%. Roadside levels during this period were about 3.5 times above the WHO-recommended levels. At that rate, PM would not diminish to acceptable levels before 2040.

Regarding the EPD's answer to the question, Is it true that the air pollution in Hong Kong is already so consistently dangerous that the threshold for severe harm to human health is exceeded almost every day? Note that the EPD spokesperson did not actually answer this question. Unfortunately, the answer to this question is "YES"! Remember that it is roadside emissions which impact human health the most. One ton of PM or NOx being emitted at face-level is obviously much more concentrated than the same amount being emitted 100 feet up in the air by a coal-fired power plant. The recently unveiled HKUST study showed dangerously high levels of streetside emissions in all 6 of the districts surveyed, with actual levels between 2-3 times the WHO AQGs. Even by the Government's own very lax standards, roadside pollution violated the API danger level of 100 in Central district 1 of every 8 days. Note that Hong Kong only measures roadside pollution in 3 of its 18 districts! The HKUST study found that the highest level of roadside pollution was in a district without any official government roadside monitoring station -- Wanchai.Regarding the EPD's attempt to downplay Hong Kong's toxic levels of roadside emissions by judging their level against an annual average, the harms of air pollution do not vary in a direct linear relationship to the level of pollutants. Exceedances over a certain level, such as the WHO AQGs, trigger a disproportionate increase in adverse health effects."

Our grassroots movement seeks to transform the relationship between the citizen and the government to one where a clean safe environment becomes an entitlement, NOT a luxury. It is the duty of a govt to provide this indispensable public good to its citizens. Indeed, protecting public health is deemed one of the major justifications for the existence of any government, however elected, formed or appointed.

On the role of democracy, civic engagement, and free speech, and how these values relate to clean air: the people of Hong Kong need to speak out if we are to claim what properly belongs to us. Again, why else would people submit to government and agree to the pact of civil society (taxes and obedience to the law) if the government is not going to provide even those basic necessities universally deemed indispensable to human livelihood, i.e., safe food, clean water and CLEAN AIR?

CAN is the #1 resource for health, news, policy about air pollution with a special focus on Hong Kong policy and events.

Learn more about air pollution: watch and SHARE this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE_QaOjOHzw

Please sign the Petition for Clean Air, http://hongkongcan.org/eng/

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Yesterday, the NY Times published a Q&A about air pollution, interviewing an Environmental Protection Department spokesperson. We were shocked that the EPD's statements were reprinted without any additional research, qualification or comment from air experts or community leaders in Hong Kong. The NY Times' blog post was tantamount to reissuing under the banner of good journalism an official press release from a stakeholder with very obvious vested interests in spinning a certain story, i.e., Hong Kong's air is safe. Below is the link to the dubious article --

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/qa-hong-kongs-air-pollution-problem/

In the words of an emininent public health scientist, reacting to the NY Times article this morning:
"This makes me feel seriously unwell. What a ghastly,cynical,disingenuous, misleading pack of nonsense. However, quite skillful I suppose to be able to navigate a swamp with such coyly crafted responses."

You can expect us to issue an official response soon enough....
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CAN is the #1 resource for health, news, policy about air pollution with a special focus on Hong Kong policy and events.

Learn more about air pollution: watch and SHARE this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE_QaOjOHzw

Please sign the Petition for Clean Air, http://hongkongcan.org/eng/

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In the wake of the news that Hong Kong's roadside pollution reached life-threatening levels in 2009, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gE0Vya-Hwgdo2D2YLPT0skOGy1Gg, DAB LegCo member Chan Hak-kan rightly posed the question to the EPD, will the EPD consider installing more roadside monitors? No, was the answer from Kitty Poon Kit, the EPD's spokesperson. Apparently, the Government feels that the current monitoring network is sufficient.

But a quick analysis of results derived from HKUST's recent mobile air pollution monitoring study shows that the roadside pollution in Wanchai was actually the worst in HK, even though the Government monitoring stations are located in only Central, Causeway Bay and Mongkok. The Government's justification for not needing additional monitors is that these three monitors are sufficiently accurate proxies for roadside monitoring at other highly trafficked locations all over Hong Kong. The case of Wanchai obviously challenges the prudence of this assumption. Furthermore, the HKUST study showed big variations between different streets in the same district and between different districts.

http://hongkongcan.org/eng/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Mapresult.pdf

What's more disturbing, however, in the big picture, is the fact that the Government's monitoring network -- 11 of 14 stations measuring ambient air quality, rather than roadside emissions -- is predicated on their outdated concern about overall pollutant tonnage, rather than adverse impacts to human health. OBVIOUSLY, it's the spumes of diesel particles blowing in a person's face, on the street, which affect human health the most. One ton of PM emitted by a coal-fired power plant 30 meters above ground is obviously going to be a lot less damaging to human beings than the same weight of emissions beging emitted at street level.

The mentality which dominated 20 years ago is no longer relevant or useful to the public health crisis we are confronting today. If a resident of Hong Kong needs to know the pollution reading on any given day, it is the ROADSIDE reading which is highly relevant and useful -- NOT an ambient reading! In the same vein, Government should be formulating air quality management policy based on COMPREHENSIVE readings of ROADSIDE pollution throughout Hong Kong. When it comes to human health, these are the MAIN readings which count. And, lest anyone have failed to read the newspaper recently, roadside pollution is, at best, the same, if not deteriorating.

(For the sake of argument, let's assume the 3 roadside monitors ARE a decent proxy for all of HK's roadside pollution, the fact that there are only 3 compared to 11 general monitors STILL points to the outmoded policy and mentality which led to the building of such a network in the first place. Unfortunately, the mentality which led to the building of the monitoring network is the same one proposing public policy today.)

Thus, the locations of the official monitors should actually be inverted if the Government wants to live up to its stated intention of protecting public health.
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CAN is the #1 resource for health, news, policy about air pollution with a special focus on Hong Kong policy and events.

Learn more about air pollution: watch and SHARE this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE_QaOjOHzw

Please sign the Petition for Clean Air, http://hongkongcan.org/eng/

FOLLOW US, FOLLOW ME
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