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Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

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Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#21

Post by jarek »

darrenkopp wrote: post #17
thoughtcriminal wrote: post #12

I'm amazed by people's ability to rationalize why it's okay to continue commuting long distances and driving cars in general, despite the toxic smog that gets deadlier every year. Instead of making those hard changes like using public transit or living locally, I guess everyone is waiting for Elon Musk to save the world with his magic-mobiles. Go ahead, downvote me for telling the truth. I got karma to spare.

Have you seen the public transportation in Utah? We got a commuter rail train in 2002 for the olympics, which was pretty much limited to a small area in downtown Salt Lake, and then a straight line down through sandy. Then a few years ago we got Front Runner, which is a somewhat fast commuter train between Ogden and salt lake, but which costs somewhere around $250/month last time I checked. Buses are OK, about as goo…

If you're looking to go to SLC frequently, perhaps living so far away is part of the problem thoughtcriminal is speaking of. Nothing on you personally, this is a society-wide problem.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#22

Post by seanmcdirmid »

bbuffone wrote: post #19
Volpe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many of us laowai in Beijing get depressed in the winter because of the poor air quality. I'm confused about the implication here. Are westerners (laowai) more prone to getting depressed from poor air quality? Chinese (native/migrant) aren't affected?

As a westerner in beijing, i think everyone is affected the same by air pollution, though the difference is the "choice" of being here vs. not. You can see first hand the difference between the Beijing sky and that in Boston. http://sdrv.ms/10T8oof I feel more depressed in the summer time when the air pollution is high. In the summer, the pollution feels smothering and then the oppressive heat of the city can be over…

Beijing summer high AQI is nowhere near winter high AQI! Summer, you have rain, wind, and all the nice stuff that blows out the pollution. Summers in Beijing just feel bad because its hot and muggy + some pollution mixed in.

We are all affected the same sure enough, but our* expectations might be higher since back home we think "90" is high, when in Beijing that is almost a clean air day. The rest of north and central China is pretty much the same, while the southerners and definitely the westerners (like, west of LanZhou) will complain about the AQI in Beijing just as much as the foreigners do.

* There are many countries with problems as bad or worse than China. If you come from one of those countries, then Beijing might not seem so bad.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#23

Post by seanmcdirmid »

darrenkopp wrote: post #17
thoughtcriminal wrote: post #12

I'm amazed by people's ability to rationalize why it's okay to continue commuting long distances and driving cars in general, despite the toxic smog that gets deadlier every year. Instead of making those hard changes like using public transit or living locally, I guess everyone is waiting for Elon Musk to save the world with his magic-mobiles. Go ahead, downvote me for telling the truth. I got karma to spare.

Have you seen the public transportation in Utah? We got a commuter rail train in 2002 for the olympics, which was pretty much limited to a small area in downtown Salt Lake, and then a straight line down through sandy. Then a few years ago we got Front Runner, which is a somewhat fast commuter train between Ogden and salt lake, but which costs somewhere around $250/month last time I checked. Buses are OK, about as goo…

I'm pretty amazed someone would claim that Trax is only limited to a small area of downtown Salt Lake.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#24

Post by darrenkopp »

jarek wrote: post #21
darrenkopp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the public transportation in Utah? We got a commuter rail train in 2002 for the olympics, which was pretty much limited to a small area in downtown Salt Lake, and then a straight line down through sandy. Then a few years ago we got Front Runner, which is a somewhat fast commuter train between Ogden and salt lake, but which costs somewhere around $250/month last time I checked. Buses are OK, about as goo…

If you're looking to go to SLC frequently, perhaps living so far away is part of the problem thoughtcriminal is speaking of. Nothing on you personally, this is a society-wide problem.

That's the problem: I don't go to SLC very often. I work in Centerville which is 15 miles away from my house. The inversion does not affect just Salt Lake; it affects the entire Wasatch Front.

All the pollution from the entire area just aggregates into a massive inversion.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#25

Post by austenallred »

I live in Provo (just south of Salt Lake City), and I start coughing every time I go outside. I'm fine as long as i'm indoors. The last time I felt like this is when I lived in Beijing for a stint, and before that when I lived in a couple mining towns in Ukraine with no regard for pollution control (Mariupol and Gorlovka).

It's not surprising though, Utah is the perfect storm for this type of pollution. Surrounded by mountains on all sides, the inversions that come every winter drop the temperature by 10 degrees and trap bad air in. Combine that with awful transport (a result of a history of conservatism, a balanced state budget, and towns being spread out as soon as you leave the major freeway), and it's not surprising that this happens pretty much every year.

I'm just grateful Geneva sold off the steel refinery in Orem; the air is noticeably cleaner.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#26

Post by ars »

jonpeda wrote: post #20
ars wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead of making those hard changes like using public transit Actually diesel buses make more soot than cars. For this problem, public transit is not the solution. (Unless you use LNG buses.)

I like how you immediately contradicted your conclusion with the obvious counterexample.

I like to be honest.

But LNG buses are just not common enough, they apparently cost more than diesel ones so municipalities don't buy them.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#27

Post by darrenkopp »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #23
darrenkopp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the public transportation in Utah? We got a commuter rail train in 2002 for the olympics, which was pretty much limited to a small area in downtown Salt Lake, and then a straight line down through sandy. Then a few years ago we got Front Runner, which is a somewhat fast commuter train between Ogden and salt lake, but which costs somewhere around $250/month last time I checked. Buses are OK, about as goo…

I'm pretty amazed someone would claim that Trax is only limited to a small area of downtown Salt Lake.

It is. The only cross line is up 4th South. I mentioned there's a fairly long straight line down through sandy, but stations are more sparse, and misses the majority of salt lake.

Aerial Map: https://www.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0...

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#28

Post by suresk »

darrenkopp wrote: post #17
thoughtcriminal wrote: post #12

I'm amazed by people's ability to rationalize why it's okay to continue commuting long distances and driving cars in general, despite the toxic smog that gets deadlier every year. Instead of making those hard changes like using public transit or living locally, I guess everyone is waiting for Elon Musk to save the world with his magic-mobiles. Go ahead, downvote me for telling the truth. I got karma to spare.

Have you seen the public transportation in Utah? We got a commuter rail train in 2002 for the olympics, which was pretty much limited to a small area in downtown Salt Lake, and then a straight line down through sandy. Then a few years ago we got Front Runner, which is a somewhat fast commuter train between Ogden and salt lake, but which costs somewhere around $250/month last time I checked. Buses are OK, about as goo…

A monthly premium pass (for riding buses, Trax, and FrontRunner) is only $190 per month, which seems fairly reasonable.

If you are commuting to/from downtown SLC, public transit is actually somewhat reasonable - I live in the southwest end of the valley and it is only maybe 50 minutes vs 35 to drive in ideal conditions. The bigger problems are:

1) The trains don't run nearly often enough. If you happen to miss one or need to go at a non-peak time, it is going to be really inconvenient.

2) Not only does much of our population live in suburbs, a large amount of jobs are located outside of downtown, too. In that case, a 20 minute commute by car can easily be a 1.5 - 2 hour public transit commute - I can drive to work in about 25 minutes, but according to UTA, the most optimal route by bus/Trax would take 1:30.

The way we've situated things here is pretty hostile to mass transit, but I'm glad we're at least making slow progress.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#29

Post by khuey »

ars wrote: post #14
thoughtcriminal wrote: post #12

I'm amazed by people's ability to rationalize why it's okay to continue commuting long distances and driving cars in general, despite the toxic smog that gets deadlier every year. Instead of making those hard changes like using public transit or living locally, I guess everyone is waiting for Elon Musk to save the world with his magic-mobiles. Go ahead, downvote me for telling the truth. I got karma to spare.

> Instead of making those hard changes like using public transit Actually diesel buses make more soot than cars. For this problem, public transit is not the solution. (Unless you use LNG buses.)

On a per-person-moved basis? I'm going to call [citation needed] on that.

Re: Toxic fog settles over Salt Lake City

#30

Post by saosebastiao »

ars wrote: post #14
thoughtcriminal wrote: post #12

I'm amazed by people's ability to rationalize why it's okay to continue commuting long distances and driving cars in general, despite the toxic smog that gets deadlier every year. Instead of making those hard changes like using public transit or living locally, I guess everyone is waiting for Elon Musk to save the world with his magic-mobiles. Go ahead, downvote me for telling the truth. I got karma to spare.

> Instead of making those hard changes like using public transit Actually diesel buses make more soot than cars. For this problem, public transit is not the solution. (Unless you use LNG buses.)

This hasn't been true for almost a decade now...and even before then, all it took was a few cars (3-4) taken off the road for the bus to come out ahead.
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