TABLE OF CONTENTS - The Professional Green Building Council

Theme B: Creating a livable, healthy and environmentally viable citiesThe policy acknowledges many distinct benefits of rail over other modes oftransport, specifically in terms of environmental and economic benefits.Environmental benefits*“The Strategic Environmental Assessment carried out as part of the RDS-2 hasconcluded none of the new railway schemes will present insurmountableenvironmental problems, though all have some potential environmental impacts.These will be addressed during the design and development process of individualrailway scheme.On completion, the Network would increase the rail share in the public transportsystem from 31% at present to 43% by 2016, or in terms of the distance travelledby passengers, from 34% to almost 60%. This would reduce the reliance on roadbasedtransport and translate to environmental benefits amounting to a reduction ofair pollutants by some 600 tonnes of NOx and respirable suspended particulatesper year and 160,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.”Economic Return“The investment in the Railway Network will yield an economic internal rate ofreturn of more than 15%.”[re. HK 2030, SAR Rail Development policy]Much attention has been paid rightly to “integrated transport planning” but theintegration has been limited to “transport” and directed at an integrated view ofdifferent modes of transport.One notable characteristic of these policies and their extensions is their limitedvision focused on railway in itself, and transport as a nearly closed system evenwhen it goes beyond rail transport to include alternative modes. (ref. paper by439