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Is it really the cars that are the problem - or just a high concentration of particles in the air from having so many people and things jammed in a tight space?
by EricE 4y ago
Is it really the cars that are the problem - or just a high concentration of particles in the air from having so many people and things jammed in a tight space?
Dense cities themselves are the real problem. I have started carrying portable air sensors around (they are surprisingly cheap and measure a wide variety of things from particles to VOCs and CO2) and simply not being in or near a large city dramatically improves air quality. But hey, lump everything in and bash cars while you are at it - double bonus :p
- asdff 4y agoRemember when the pandemic first started and literally no one was on the roads? I hiked up into the mountains of LA. You could see to long beach and even catalina clear as can be, 50 mile visibility. It stayed like that until traffic started kicking back up again. The same dense city, the only difference was people weren't driving to work and the air was noticeably clearer both to the naked eye, and on purple air. EVs will help some but honestly these days, a lot of particulate pollution cars put out comes from sources like the tires and brake dust. EVs are heavier vehicles overall and would produce more of both for a given class of vehicle. The best thing to do would be to improve service quality of bus transit in order to move more people with fewer vehicles; giving busses signal preemtion and their own lanes would go a long way to make them more convenient than cars for more people. Bike lane networks would also help people feel more confident riding a bike in cities to more places. Not enough people take the lane while biking, certainly.