The Metro Manila Development Authority wants to save a lot of lungs by minimizing air pollution while easing traffic congestion on Edsa and other major roads.

General manager Robert Nacianceno, in an interview, said the agency’s goal of reducing 1,000 trips of some 3,000 passenger buses under the Organized Bus Route scheme would conserve about 10 million liters of gasoline a year.

“There is cleaner air if there is a reduced carbon dioxide emission,” he told Standard Today.

Earlier, Ramon Santiago, chief of the Public Safety Unit, said the World Bank commended MMDA for lowering the level of carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere by 15,000 metric tons a year on Edsa’s 24-kilometer stretch.

Nacianceno said the Unified Vehicular Volume Reduction Program, or number-coding scheme, and the planting of thousands of ficus trees on major roads were among Chairman Bayani Fernando’s efforts to revive the lungs of the metropolis.

“Trees take in carbon dioxide. We have already planted at least 12,000 balite trees on major roads.”

According to Nacianceno, an additional of 10,000 ficus trees will be planted on center islands this year.

In a 2005 World Health Organization report, the air in Metro Manila was the fourth most polluted, after Mexico, Shanghai and New Delhi. Rio N. Araja