Forum: Protect pedestrians from second-hand smoke on pathways
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The National Environment Agency’s (NEA) efforts to update regulatory and enforcement frameworks, particularly regarding air quality, underscore a vital principle: Clean, breathable air is a fundamental right and key to Singapore’s urban liveability.
However, a persistent domestic air quality loophole continues to affect pedestrians daily: “smoking while walking” along uncovered public footpaths and high-density walkways.
While Singapore has expanded smoking bans to more than 49,000 locations, including sheltered linkways, bus stops, and precinct-wide zones like Orchard Road, unsheltered footpaths remain a blind spot.
A walking smoker creates a moving plume of toxic second-hand smoke, leaving those behind them, including non-smokers, families with young children, and the elderly, with no choice but to inhale carcinogens or try to overtake them on narrow pathways.
This is an issue that has been raised in public forums before, yet past responses from the authorities have often been tardy or defensive. If we are boosting environmental enforcement frameworks, it is time for NEA to review this gap and provide clarity on three key questions:
Spatial boundaries: Will NEA consider extending precinct-wide restrictions to high-density residential footpaths, restricting smoking exclusively to designated smoking areas or yellow boxes to eliminate mobile plumes?
Targeted funding: Could a portion of tobacco excise tax revenues be earmarked specifically to fund ventilated public designated smoking areas and smoking cessation support, and NEA’s enforcement technologies?
Enforcement capabilities: What steps or technological solutions (such as smart surveillance at persistent hot spots) are being evaluated to make mobile second-hand smoke enforcement practical and effective?
Clean air should not be a priority only when haze hits our shores, but an everyday standard on public walkways. We hope NEA will address these concerns and let us know how pedestrians can be protected from second-hand smoke while in transit.
Edwin Goh