| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Air pollution on Chiswick High Road | |
| Posted by: | Michael Robinson | |
| Date/Time: | 05/11/15 10:54:00 |
| "I am unaware of any studies that can verify claims about mortality due to air quality." Here is some recent research. The analysis is highly statistical because it is predicting what will happen to the population as a whole, not to a particular individual. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/460401/air-quality-econanalysis-nitrogen-interim-guidance.pdf https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/HIAinLondon_KingsReport_14072015_final_0.pdf "Is there any medical evidence that this happens at the degree of exposure a child growing up in Chiswick is likely to have?" The affects are long term and ultimately result in reduced life expectancy so there is unlikely to be direct medical evidence now given the health issues that affect quality of life are likely to arise in 10, 20, 30+ years time. The question for parents is how much they want to gamble with their children ...? On traffic on Chiswick High Rd, yes, there has been a steady decline in vehicle numbers over the last 15 years. There are a number of reasons behind this - congestion charging, reduced parking from CPZs, reallocation of road space for bus lanes and demographic changes so younger people own fewer cars and drive less than the same age groups in the past. The decline of air quality is partially because of buses but also because of more diesel vehicles in general given the public were encouraged to buy these because they produced less CO2 than petrol engines. Governments didn't seem to realise that the "real world" performance of diesel engines was considerably worse than emission testing done in labs . At least TfL has program to change the bus fleet but there is nothing for all the other diesels. On congestion resulting from reallocation of road space to bus and cycle lanes, I'd argue that it is impossible to "solve" congestion in London as there will always be considerably more demands on road space than space available. For every person who opts to cycle or take the bus instead of driving, there will always be another driver only too happy to take their place on the road. Average speeds in London have hardly changed over the last 100 years. I think the focus should therefore be to accept there will always be congestion but mitigate as far as possible the negative impacts of congestion and give people transport choices that don't involve sitting in queues of traffic (congestion is just a measure of people's tolerance for sitting in queues of traffic anyway) Pollution will be reduced more by reducing the number of vehicles than making it easier to drive because if traffic is made more free flowing then more people drive so the traffic ends up congested again. I don't think it is inevitable that the number of vehicles will increase. Vehicle ownership in central London has been declining despite the increase in population. The demographic changes meaning younger people own fewer cars and drive less are showing no signs of reversing. It comes down to policies. Congestion charging, emission zones, restricting parking spaces all will suppress driving and I think we can expect to see road pricing in London within the next 10-15 years so all journeys have the potential to be charged. There is plenty that can be done with freight traffic as well such as shifting deliveries to out of hours and more consolidation. The convenience supermarkets use their delivery lorries like mobile stock rooms to maximise shelf space so they aren't paying the full cost of all their vans on the road either. Electric vehicles aren't the panacea that some people think. They may reduce pollution in urban areas but they don't take up any less space and they don't injure less if they hit someone so they don't change the argument in favour of reducing the number of vehicles in my opinion. This is the sort of topic that I'm sure Tom Barry would have been in his element! |