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I hope we remove cars from city centers in Europe and replace them with more bike lanes and public transport. Ie the small particle pollution from cars is makin
by acd 6y ago
I hope we remove cars from city centers in Europe and replace them with more bike lanes and public transport. Ie the small particle pollution from cars is making pedestrians and cyclist sick. I hope we put car parking centers outside the city center and offer good inbound public / private transport.
I would say clean air is an example of Tragedy of the commons, where the pollution is an externalized cost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Example...
- pimeys 6y agoAs an asthmatic person, I hope this too. Berlin is quite bad on some streets, especially due to people's love for diesel cars. This also includes trucks and diesel buses.
- choeger 6y agoI don't want to trash your hopes, but the particles are pretty much independent from traffic nowadays (see how Stuttgart is doing these days). The drought around Berlin will probably kick way more fine particles into the city than all Diesel cars together. The only thing that could help would be more trees and less dense cities.
- thesz 6y agoMore trees [1], less particle pollution, you say? [1] https://www.businessinsider.co.za/georgia-helicopter-causes-pollen-storm-video-2019-3 https://www.businessinsider.co.za/georgia-helicopter-causes-...
- amelius 6y agoAnd less helicopters.
- choeger 6y agoWell, conifers, obviously ;)
- vladvasiliu 6y agoI think that the trouble with pollen (from the trees) is mostly allergies. However, it seems to me that allergies are much more frequent nowadays than they were in the past, and mostly concentrated in the cities. There's a study [1] linking allergies and asthma with pollution. > Strong epidemiological evidence supports a relationship between air pollution and the exacerbation of asthma and other respiratory diseases. Recent studies have suggested that air pollutants play a role in the development of asthma and allergies. So maybe more trees IS the solution, even though it would seem they're the problem? [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192198/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192198/
- arcticbull 6y agoMilan plans to reduce metro capacity to about 1/3 permanently. Talk about learning the wrong lessons here, oof. This feels like one of those near-sighted decisions that leads to tons of negative knock-on effects.
- bjohnson225 6y agoNo, it’s temporary. They’re planning reduced capacity for the metro as part of phase 2 of Italy’s coronavirus response - a careful reopening of the economy with some significant restrictions remaining in place. Eventually it’ll be safe to stand in packed train carriages again, but not yet.
- arcticbull 6y agoHm the article didn't make that particularly clear, and on re-reading I'm still not seeing anything to indicate they plan to revert their capacity reductions in time, but I do hope you're right.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoIe the small particle pollution from cars is making pedestrians and cyclist sick. It's making car drivers sick as well, they have to breath the same air and often air intakes are close to the exhaust of the car in front.
- jfim 6y agoThat's why most cars have a cabin air filter though.
- benhurmarcel 6y agoSomewhat surprisingly, studies ([1] in French, sorry) show that on average drivers breath worse air than cyclists actually. The main reason they bring up is that the relatively airtight cabin accumulates particles, whereas people traveling in open air can get short high peaks but lower pollution on average. [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2014/03/13/auto-metro-ou-velo-ou-respire-t-on-le-moins-d-air-pollue_4382697_3244.html https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2014/03/13/auto-metro...
- collyw 6y ago"Park and ride" is common in the UK, but I never see it in Spain.
- masklinn 6y agoI assume city needing to be properly set up for it is a large part of the issue. Might have become better since, but 10 years back Paris certainly was not, the public transport inside paris was pretty good (though cycling was bad, that I know is getting better at least), but if you came in driving from the suburbs there was no good way to transfer, no "transfer nodes" where you could easily leave your car and hop onto the metro or your bike. For multi-modal to really work you need easy and cheap ways to transfer between modes, e.g. parking on the edges of the dense public transport network which is either free or included in the transit pass to encourage use, otherwise the incentive is to keep driving inside.
- aivisol 6y agoI wish the order was reverse: first create public transport and car parks outside and then remove cars from city centers.