Blue skies and brown earth

It has taken a virus, the lowest among species, to teach us that a sustainable transport system can and must be developed

Covid-19 has brought almost the entire world and all forms of transport to a screeching halt. Even non-motorised transport like walking and cycling have been shut down. Without vehicles and their emissions of criteria pollutants and green-house gases (GHGs), the skies are now blue. Transport has several negative externalities — emissions of GHG and criteria pollutants, increasing dependence on fossil fuel threatening a country’s energy security, congestion, road-related morbidity and mortality etc. These problems have been quantified and measures to mitigate them have been extensively discussed. But seldom has transport itself become a negative externality as a potential transmitter of