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Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#381

Post by toomanyrichies »

saltysalt wrote: post #347
toomanyrichies wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Someone without bias” is indeed obvious, and therefore unhelpful. Can you be more specific? Who, precisely, doesn’t have a dog in the climate change fight?

How specific am I supposed to be, do you want names, resumes, potential investors? Not my problem to solve. However, I no longer accept published reports at face value, unless I check who the authors are, and who funds them. They even have a Cruchbase page, it's easy to check for yourself.

> How specific am I supposed to be, do you want names, resumes, potential investors?

Names would be good, for a start. If you can’t name a single person, group, or entity whose opinion would satisfy you, it’s likely that no amount of evidence would change your mind. Which means that you’re not discussing this topic in good faith.

All human endeavors have human bias, in one direction or the other. If you’re waiting for a bias-free source of information, you’ll be waiting a long time.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#382

Post by potato3732842 »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #339
rufus_foreman wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the sub-heading from the article you linked to: "The story: Robert Moses ordered engineers to build the Southern State Parkway’s bridges extra-low, to prevent poor people in buses from using the highway. The truth? It’s a little more complex"

[flagged]

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Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#384

Post by saltysalt »

toomanyrichies wrote: post #381
saltysalt wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How specific am I supposed to be, do you want names, resumes, potential investors? Not my problem to solve. However, I no longer accept published reports at face value, unless I check who the authors are, and who funds them. They even have a Cruchbase page, it's easy to check for yourself.

> How specific am I supposed to be, do you want names, resumes, potential investors? Names would be good, for a start. If you can’t name a single person, group, or entity whose opinion would satisfy you, it’s likely that no amount of evidence would change your mind. Which means that you’re not discussing this topic in good faith. All human endeavors have human bias, in one direction or the other. If you’re waiting fo…

Your argument that I should accept one source blindly because I cannot name a better alternative in the moment is pretty weak.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#385

Post by Mawr »

goatlover wrote: post #235
Zigurd wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private cars are an economic sinkhole. They make no financial sense. My town in the exurbs used to have rail service and stagecoaches. The necessity of private cars is a marketing triumph. Not a choice.

I like the freedom a private car gives me. I can go anywhere at anytime. I have nothing against public transportation and want it to be good. But you can't go everywhere at anytime. Here I'm including the country side and smaller towns.

So the state of public transportation in your area is bad enough you have to own a car. Being forced to own one is freedom, and so is needing a government-issued driver's license and a license plate.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#386

Post by jodrellblank »

robocat wrote: post #296
ahaucnx wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that there has been fundamental mistakes and overstatements in the amount of particles from brakes in much of the secondary research in the last decades. Details: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00792

Greens seem to deceive in the same way as green-washing except with greener deceptions (whereas green-washing is capitalists pretending to be green). Example: a report on the cost-benefit of using bicycles, that comes out with a fantastic positive number for introducing a cycle lane. Except the number depends on a monetary estimate of the benefits to society for health improvements. I'm sure the health improvements e…

> "example: a report on the cost-benefit of using bicycles, that comes out with a fantastic positive number for introducing a cycle lane."

Rubber-stamp a multi-billion dollar highway widening project that won't reduce traffic*, no problem, doesn't deserve any comment. Bike lane? Scrutiny with a fine-tooth comb, subject it to years of studies, complain about the cost, complain about why anyone would want a bike lane - they must be up to something! The slider is jammed 98% over towards 'cars' and still the car drivers are like "Won't someone PLEASE think about the cars?!".

"No benefits for cars were mentioned as I recall" - seriously, you think everyone might have forgotten that cars exist in the twenty seconds between when they last saw one, or heard one, or had to wait to cross a road, or used one, or heard someone talk about one, or saw an advert for one? A study on bike benefits didn't say that cars were great, do you want a study on wheelchair accessibility to talk about the benefits of being able bodied?

> "I'm sure the health improvements exist, and it wouldn't surprise me that the health benefits to society were well estimated"

"Worldwide, we estimate that physical inactivity causes 6% (ranging from 3·2% in southeast Asia to 7·8% in the eastern Mediterranean region) of the burden of disease from coronary heart disease, 7% (3·9–9·6) of type 2 diabetes, 10% (5·6–14·1) of breast cancer, and 10% (5·7–13·8) of colon cancer. Inactivity causes 9% (range 5·1–12·5) of premature mortality, or more than 5·3 million of the 57 million deaths that occurred worldwide in 2008. If inactivity were not eliminated, but decreased instead by 10% or 25%, more than 533 000 and more than 1·3 million deaths, respectively, could be averted every year." - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

*roads are wider than they used to be; if adding lanes reduced traffic, there wouldn't be any traffic these days.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#387

Post by nashashmi »

davidw wrote: post #13
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #6

How much of this has to do with the policies highlighted - removing 50k parking spots, adding bike lanes and green spaces - and how much has to do with cars having better exhaust? How much less cars are on the road today vs then? The charts and title make it look like there's no cars in Paris anymore. That's not the case, at all.

Given that tires produce a lot of particulate matter, even EV's contribute to pollution significantly.

Wouldn’t that mean bicycles contribute to air pollution?

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#388

Post by Mawr »

jfengel wrote: post #39
grg0 wrote: post #31

Cars in cities, let alone designing cities around cars, is one of the greatest tragedies of modern life.

It is, though the problem predates the cars. At the time cars were seen as a huge win over the vast piles of horse poop. Cities do need to be reconsidered for more public transit and more opportunities to walk, but other issues (delivery, emergency, disability, etc) have to figure in.

Those "other issues" are all worse with private cars than without.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#389

Post by toomanyrichies »

saltysalt wrote: post #384
toomanyrichies wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How specific am I supposed to be, do you want names, resumes, potential investors? Names would be good, for a start. If you can’t name a single person, group, or entity whose opinion would satisfy you, it’s likely that no amount of evidence would change your mind. Which means that you’re not discussing this topic in good faith. All human endeavors have human bias, in one direction or the other. If you’re waiting fo…

Your argument that I should accept one source blindly because I cannot name a better alternative in the moment is pretty weak.

> Your argument that I should accept one source blindly

Others may have made that argument, but show me where I’ve done that. So far, all I’ve done is ask you who you’d accept as a valid authority, or what evidence you’d accept. And you can’t even do that.

A claim has been made that air quality in Paris has improved, and evidence has been provided to back that claim up, in the form of AQI readings provided by (in your words) “an NGO run by environmentalists and funded by the EU”. In turn, you have made a 2nd claim that this evidence is flawed, but so far you’ve provided no evidence to back your claim up. Claims which are made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Re: Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic

#390

Post by Mawr »

Saline9515 wrote: post #196
bryanlarsen wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but they're used less frequently. Most middle class people have a car, but they're often only used for irregular trips. Commuting and errands use alternative means at much higher rates than elsewhere.

Point is, they still need cars if they have them. And Netherlands are very far from Paris, infrastructure-wise. In Paris, for instance, leaving your cargo or e-bike outside for the night means finding nothing when you wake up (I got two bikes stolen already, and they were the cheapest available).

Your "point" doesn't exist. You're essentially attempting to equate the transit situation in the US with the Netherlands, which is plain ridiculous.
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