Protective or Abusive? Is making teachers pay for parking a viable solution to reduce pollution?

By Claire Hines, Year 11

Since the beginning of the school year, teachers have been made to pay a 15 CHF fee every week — the equivalent of a 720 CHF annual pass — for access to the school parking. This is the first step of the school’s Mobility Plan, the aim of which is to combat climate change by limiting air pollution on behalf of the school staff.

According to a previous member of the Mobility Committee, as la Grande Boissière is “a city campus that is well served by public transport, LGB is well-placed to try and reduce the number of cars that its stakeholders use to get here. The idea of charging staff for parking is based on the concept of the marginal user. Those colleagues that come from locations not well served by public transportation still have the option of buying a parking permit and coming to work by car.  However, for those colleagues that could come by foot, bicycle or public transport, the parking fee is designed to act as an incentive for them not to bring their cars. Prior to the introduction of the Mobility Plan, half of the cars in the car park had Geneva license plates. This means that they lived within access of the TPG network but still chose to drive.”

Since this plan has been put into place, less staff have been coming to school by car, reducing our campus’s air pollution as intended and our contribution to the rising carbon dioxide levels in Geneva. It also frees up the parking for people who actually need to use it for its intended purpose and not simply for unnecessary drop-offs and pick-ups.

However, although this is not a problem for employees that live within the city limits, and the annual pass is roughly 50% of what other corporations demand for a similar pass, those that live further afield and have no other way to get to the campus are now obliged to pay to work. This new rule is unintentionally taking advantage of those people, who although a minority, are a crucial part of our school community. It would be entirely possible to allow these teachers without Geneva license plates on their vehicles, and who could prove that they have no other viable alternative to reach LGB, to be exempt from this rule. 

On the other hand, our campus is not the only Geneva based establishment putting new rules in place to reduce their part in the city’s air pollution. Since 2017, the Cantonal Government has put into place a Stratégie de Protection de l’Air 2030. This plan aims to reduce 50% of the nitrogen oxide and 18% of the fine particles released into the city’s atmosphere, compared to 2005, by targeting the main sources of the latter. The main sources of this pollution are namely heating, industrial companies, private companies and emissions from vehicles. 

In response to the Government’s plans and proposals, some companies like the Transports Publics Genevois and Geneva Airport have decided to take action. The former for instance, has committed to having only trams and buses that run on electricity by 2030 in order to reduce their share in the city’s air pollution. The airport is also joining in by putting into place a carbon offsetting program that consists of the availability of an optional ticket known as a CO₂ offset. 

Finally, our school is also trying to do its part with its Mobility Plan of which making teachers pay for parking is only the first step.

The second step is to limit the number of unnecessary drop-offs and pick-ups made by parents dropping off or picking-up their children at school even though they have a more sustainable method of transportation at their disposal. This would greatly reduce the school’s contribution to air pollution as the congestion of these drop-offs and pick-ups is much greater than that of the teachers as there are more of the parents and that they usually keep the car engine on while waiting unlike the teachers who turn theirs off.

We all need to do our part to reduce the air pollution of Geneva, and the teachers should be commended for their outstanding participation in this movement, despite the unfairness of the solution for those who have no other alternative to reach the school.