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LEAD IN BY HOST MAURYZIA WONG: Our next story is about clean air and alternative fuels. Here's David Stiles... STORY: Houston's air is among the most hazardous in the nation. In the past three years, pollution has increased to unprecedented levels. Much of the pollution comes from automobiles and heavy trucks, that use diesel or gasoline. The Metropolitan Transit Authority, or METRO, the authority that plans road, highway or mass transit projects, advocates public transit as a solution to Houston's poor air quality. Jim Patrick, director of Maintenance Support Functions at METRO, explains: "The very nature of public transit does a good deal in any city ... you know one of our busses and the passengers average about 40 people ... they have the potential to take that number of cars off the streets. " Dale Brooks, the President of the Houston Chapter of Electric Cars, says that the real problem is relying on petroleum-based fuels. "If you substitute the word crack for gasoline ... you understand our nation's addiction to gasoline and you understand why we're willing to poison ourselves ... and you understand why we're willing to sell our children's birthright just so we can have some more crack." METRO experimented with liquid natural gas fuel in 1995, but as Jim Patrick says, it was not cost effective: "We made a business decision to go back to our original diesel infrastructure and begin concentrating on ways to avoid spending money we didn't have to spend." John Wilson says that most pollution in the future will come from vehicles using petroleum-based fuels. "Most pollution on the highways by 2007 is going to come from heavy-duty diesel vehicles." METRO is not now considering any alternative fuels, but instead plans to reduce the amount of diesel the buses use. "Of the engine and the new energy storage systems on board... to reduce emissions generally by 80-90 percent while improving fuel mileage... and that's a very big issue with us ... by potentially as much as 50 percent" For now, buses will run on diesel, and METRO has no concrete plans to use alternative fuels. David Stiles, KPFT News, Houston E-mail David Stiles at stiles138@yahoo.com This story was broadcast on July 11, 2002.