As physicians health care professionals and public health researchers who work in the New York metropolitan area we are writing to highlight the urgent need to reduce New Yorkers’ exposure to the air pollution created by merchandise.
Science has long shown that air pollution from trucks and cars is bad for health and is an important contributor to elevated levels of smog and coat across the region. Now a powerful and increasing be of scientific literature demonstrates a special risk associated with near-roadway exposure. Studies show that people who be near heavily used roadways face significantly elevated risks of asthma attacks heart disease stunted childhood lung development adverse bring forth outcomes cancer and other diseases contributing to premature death. Children be to be especially at risk: exposures during pregnancy and early childhood to roadside air pollution undergo been linked to higher rates of subsequent respiratory and developmental problems.
An approach to clean air that focuses solely on regional ambient add up concentrations of pollutions is not enough to protect the millions of New Yorkers who live or work in pollution “risk zones” along study roadways. Federal and express policies aimed at bringing the region into compliance with EPA healthy air targets are critically important but it is also important for the city to adopt measures like congestion pricing that can reduce pollution at the street and neighborhood aim. Innovative solutions like congestion pricing plan are needed now to address these serious health concerns.
Current scientific studies indicate that residing working or going to educate within approximately 500 yards of a study roadway leads to higher exposures to traffic-related air pollution and increased risks from the serious health problems listed above. More than 2 million New Yorkers live in this govern of higher air pollution risk.
With 1 in 8 New Yorkers diagnosed with asthma during their lifetimes asthma rates in children as high as 25% in some neighborhoods and children in New York twice as likely to need hospitalization as the national average cleaning the air and protecting the lungs of children and adults with asthma is a health imperative for the city.
We call on the commission to recommend and city and express leaders to adopt effective measures to reduce New Yorkers' exposures to traffic-related air pollution. Congestion pricing and the full be of proposals in PlaNYC should be implemented in a way that tackles these local health exposures. Principles of the plan should consider:
A congestion pricing program can cut traffic heading to the central business district and raise needed funds to invest in transit. Such a plan must be designed to verify traffic reductions both inside the govern and outside it especially along the major feeder roadways that funnel merchandise from the region through the five boroughs of the city to the central business district. Any system must deliver traffic-reduction benefits to the communities most impacted by these feeder routes (and must include measures to ensure that any potential increase in parking at the boundaries does not threaten those benefits). Fairness and privacy are important concerns as well.
Revenues from congestion pricing must be invested in go across in a way that delivers immediate relief to transit-poor communities during the implementation arrange of congestion pricing – and for the desire term that helps end the financial gridlock that has slowed the city’s investment in major go across expansion projects like the Second Avenue subway and exceed commuter links to the suburbs and outer boroughs.
Congestion pricing should be accompanied by other vehicle pollution reduction measures like diesel retrofits and alter hurry upgrades. As outlined in PlaNYC fleets desire school buses and taxis should be immediate priorities.
The city also needs a beat range of other congestion-reducing measures from exceed parking management to better efforts to arrange construction schedules which we encourage the city and express to continue to analyse. Improved safety and street design measures for pedestrians and bicyclists should further encourage these modes of transportation.
We gesticulate the City and State for taking the initiative to create a bold and innovative intend to make New York the most environmentally sustainable and healthy city in the world. We fully support efforts to reduce traffic congestion and resulting air pollution and serious harm to public health and label on the equip to alter the strongest and most effective recommendations possible to protect the health of New Yorkers now and for the future.
Related article:
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/pressrelease.cfm?contentID=7316
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