Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Air Quality

Eyes on the Street: Chain Reaction Car Fire on 58th Street

By Brad Aaron | Mar 24, 2017 | 11 Comments

Firefighters had trouble putting out the fire -- because the driver of the blue van parked too close to the nearest hydrant. The blaze spread down the block and reached the First Avenue bike lane before they got it under control.

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4 Things Schools Can Do to Reduce the Asthma Threat From Idling Cars

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 17, 2016 | No Comments

Lately, American schools have been pretty responsive to public health and safety threats facing children. Witness the rise of peanut butter bans or the dwindling number of vending machines in schools. But schools haven’t been very successful at tackling what is arguably a much bigger threat to children’s health: air pollution caused by driving. Asthma is the most […]

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The Feds Want to Reform the Cult of “Level of Service”

By Angie Schmitt | Jan 28, 2016 | No Comments

“What you measure is what you get,” the saying goes. That’s certainly true for transportation policy. And for a very long time one metric has reigned supreme on American streets: “Level of Service,” a system that assigns letter grades based on motorist delay. Roughly speaking, a street with free-flowing traffic gets an A while one where […]

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MIT Study: Vehicle Emissions Cause 58,000 Premature Deaths Yearly in U.S.

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 22, 2013 | No Comments

Just when you thought it was safe to breathe, a pair of studies underscore the grave threat that air pollution poses to public health. According to new research from MIT, in 2005 air pollution accounted for a staggering 200,000 premature deaths in the United States, more than 58,000 of which can be attributed to vehicle emissions. Air […]

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Report: Pollution From U.S. Parking Spaces Costs Up to $20 Billion Per Year

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 23, 2012 | No Comments

Parking spaces keep getting more costly. As we often discuss on Streetsblog, parking encourages people to drive rather than ride transit, bike, or walk. And all that asphalt also taxes sewer systems by making vast swaths of urban and suburban land impermeable. But an overlooked cost is that building and maintaining each parking space belches […]

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Polluters Rejoice! Obama Caves on Proposed Ozone Standard

By Tanya Snyder | Sep 2, 2011 | No Comments

This morning, President Obama announced that he would direct the EPA to back off of new ozone standards that would have saved an estimated 12,000 lives [PDF]. They’ll revisit it in 2013. Get used to it. Obama said the action was taken in the interest of “reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our […]

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