Much attention has been devoted recently to the problem of idling vehicles and the government's decision to purchase fuel-guzzling limousines for senior officials. These issues are important from the point of view of perception and principle, but are somewhat marginal in the greater scheme of things.
About 25 per cent of our air pollution is derived from vehicles, but for the man in the street (literally), roadside pollution has the most immediate effect on the air that he breathes. To tackle the problem, the government has to think in terms of significant cuts to vehicular emissions - say, by half.
To achieve this scale of reduction, we have to dare to dream. Why should we in Hong Kong, with our financial strength, stable population, compact geography and developed economy be beholden to outdated and unsustainable transport models? Why should we compare ourselves with our neighbouring cities and declare: 'We're not too bad, after all?' Instead, let us create a shining example of a 21st-century transport system unmatched anywhere else in the world.
The motor vehicle is not going to go away. But vehicle numbers cannot continue to grow and roads cannot continue to be built indefinitely: the shortage of land and worsening pollution mean this is unsustainable. It is right to control emissions at the vehicular level through tougher standards or to encourage hybrid vehicles, but we also need to reduce traffic.
Planners usually justify road-building by the need to ease traffic, but the worldwide experience is that road-building increases overall traffic. Furthermore, road-driven planning leads to urban blight. It is still possible to find large-scale planning projects in Hong Kong that rely wholly on road connections, rather than planning mass-transit links from the outset.
Various ideas could be tried. The first is to build on and improve our rail-based, public-transport system. Our subway and rail network is excellent, but coverage is less dense than in cities such as London, Tokyo and New York. We need to broaden its coverage so that every part of the city can be reached by rail. While road-building is paid entirely out of the public purse, our rail network is merely subsidised through land-development rights, a model that will hold back the network's expansion. Second, bring in measures to control vehicle traffic that do not involve further road-building - such as adjusting cross-harbour tunnel fares, and electronic road pricing. The latter should allow different tariffs for various types of vehicles at different times of the day: for example, cheaper rates for goods deliveries early in the morning.
Third, replace diesel buses with trams and trolley buses where possible, and switch all buses and minibuses to non-diesel fuel. Fourth, create an efficient, rail-based, cross-border transport system for freight.