public transport | Peter Cleasby

As evidence accumulates about the transmission routes of the Covid-19 plague, can we afford any longer to allow unconstrained speaking in confined spaces?

My elder daughter has sent me an interesting and informed article from the English language edition of the Spanish El Pais newspaper, which is worth reading in full. Put simply, it shows how tiny aerosols – rather than, as first thought, the larger droplets – are particular spreaders of the plague in rooms with poor ventilation and and where people allow aerosols to escape from their mouths by speaking. Aerosols linger in the air much longer than droplets, and so are potentially more harmful.

This has an immediate practical implication. The anti-plague rules currently allow people with certain conditions to be exempt from the requirement to wear face coverings on buses and trains. I’m not a frequent bus user but judging by the number of people I see not wearing masks on our buses in Exeter we have a seriously disabled population.

Not wearing a mask is not in itself an issue: there are good reasons for the exemption when applied honestly. Concern arises when non-wearers decide to hold conversations on the bus. Because summer has passed and the weather is now colder and windier there is a greater temptation not to open the windows and ventilate the bus. So, in exchange for the concession of not having to wear a mask, some of those beneficiaries put the rest of us at greater risk by spewing their potentially plague-carrying aerosols around in an enclosed space.

Bus and train operators need to take this in hand. Two measures spring to mind.

First, ensure that at least two windows on every vehicle deck are fixed in the open postion so that no one can close them. If passengers complain, then they need to be reminded that it’s better to be chilled on public transport than frozen in a public mortuary.

Second, every passenger allowed to board without a face covering should be a handed a short leaflet by the driver or conductor. This would have on one side a clear large font instruction on the lines of “No mask? Then please don’t talk!” with an explanation on the other.

Not everyone will obey, but it would strengthen the hand of the rule-observant majority and – hopefully – get the infection rate down. As the old World War 2 slogan went: “Careless Talk Costs Lives”.

Like other local authorities across England, Devon County Council is having to make cuts to services in the name of the god Austerity. The Council’s Tough Choices consultation invites the public to comment on where the cuts should fall. Does it really?

One consultation in progress is the public transport budget, where Devon says it needs to make savings of £1.76m out of a budget of £5.77m, or nearly one-third of the total [1]. To achieve this, bus services across the county will be reduced, following a withdrawal of subsidies to the bus operators. Councillors decided to go out to consultation on the proposal, even though they recognised the environmental and social downsides set out in the officer report [2]. These are:

reducing the scope of bus services as an alternative mode of travel to the car
a consequent likely increase in traffic
increased vehicle emissions
increased greenhouse gas and other emissions
reduced public transport network resilient to future effects of climate change
reduced sustainability of communities served by council funded bus routes that will have a reduced level of service in the future
reducing the ability of people without a car to travel to work
a negative impact on knowledge and skills, employment levels, and local businesses

It gives more than pause for thought that any public body is prepared to implement policies with these results.

Meanwhile, the Devon highways budget is also under scrutiny. The budget for maintenance alone is currently a hefty £63.8m [3]. The saving the County Council intends to make here is £3.4m, or 5%. The goal is to “find different, more cost-effective ways of doing things and that non-essential work is stopped so that we can maintain a safe and effective highway network while helping to support economic growth”[4]. The proposed reductions put forward for consultation, and which look likely to be implemented are:

Reduction of gritting and snow-clearing flee
Change of criteria for gritting and snow-clearing routes
Stop maintaining grit bins
Closure of picnic sites
Stopping grass cutting (except for visibility areas)
Stopping weed treatment
Remodelling of the parish lengthsmen service
Reduction in Neighbourhood Highway Team staffing

The impact assessment of these cuts acknowledges they are expected to make life worse for some people, particularly in rural areas [5]. However they do not have the long-term environmental impacts envisaged for the public transport cuts.

The extent of Devon County Council’s commitment to social and environmental improvement is revealed in other savings measures. A cheap cut is the proposed £0.1m saving from reducing school crossing patrols, which will lead to increased car use as parents drive their children to school and, in the words of the officer report, “Increases in motorised travel will have the double effect of reducing daily activity levels and increasing collision risks for those children who continue to travel on foot.” [6]. UPDATE 14 February: Devon County Council’s Cabinet decided yesterday not to proceed with the school crossing patrol savings.

Apart from the social and environmental vandalism, what is striking about all these measures is that they are easy to implement. By contrast, the main highways budget is spent through a long-running contract with a private company, South West Highways, recently extended to 2017. As is so often the case, the relationship between the commissioner and the contractor gets very close. In this case, the Council and SWH have set up a “Virtual Joint Venture” [7]. Council and SWH staff are co-located at County Hall and in the local delivery units, which gives SWH easy access to the driving seat. Under the current contract, SWH receives a fee of 2% of turnover.

Dismantling any of this would be considerably more difficult than cutting a subsidy or sacking a few lollipop ladies. And of course reducing highways spending in a roads-dependent county like Devon would have the economic growth lobby up in arms. So should we be surprised that the axe is falling on the easy targets rather than on the substantial contracted highways budget, irrespective of the social and environmental consequences?

It’s unlikely that Devon County Council is the only local authority making the same judgement calls. But that doesn’t mean they are good ones. The real villain, of course, is Austerity.

Notes:

[1] http://www.devon.gov.uk/index/councildemocracy/decision_making/cma/cma_report.htm?cmadoc=report_sc152.html

[2] http://www.devon.gov.uk/index/councildemocracy/decision_making/cma/cma_document.htm?cmadoc=minutes_exc_20150114.html, minute 280

[3] https://new.devon.gov.uk/roadsandtransport/maintaining-roads/

[4] https://new.devon.gov.uk/highwaysbudget/background/background-information

[5] https://new.devon.gov.uk/highwaysbudget/files/2014/10/Highways-budget-impact-assessment-2015-to-16.pdf

[6] http://www.devon.gov.uk/cma_report.htm?cmadoc=report_pte152.html

[7] http://www.devon.gov.uk/index/councildemocracy/decision_making/cma/cma_report.htm?cmadoc=report_hcw141.html