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In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

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Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#171

Post by awongh »

Aurornis wrote: post #125
lkbm wrote: post #2

> Particulates issued from tailpipes can aggravate asthma and heart disease and increase the risk of lung cancer and heart attack. Globally, they are a leading risk factor for premature death. Minor nitpick, but tailpipes aren't the primary source of emissions. The study is about PM2.5[0]. which will chiefly be tires and brake pads. Modern gasoline engines are relatively clean, outside of CO2, though diesel engines s…

> though diesel engines spit out a bunch of bad stuff. Exactly. The noxious tailpipe emissions in a city are usually from diesel trucks, small vehicles like motorcycles (small or absent catalytic converters), modified vehicles (catalytic converter removed or diesel reprogrammed to smoke), but not modern gasoline ICE vehicles. The love for diesel engines in many European countries was always confusing to me. PM2.5 is…

> The love for diesel engines in many European countries was always confusing to me.

And turns out the whole thing was a lie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal

It's unfortunate that so much rhetoric around environmentalism is based on faulty claims. It's starting to make me sceptical of environmental claims in general.

The latest one is AI data center water use- the extreme numbers like 5 liters of water per ChatGPT image just makes me feel sad that we can't have a civil discussion based on the facts. Everything is so polarized.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#172

Post by throwawaypath »

jgeada wrote: post #9
throwawaypath wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do EVs fare in this regard? Brakes are used significantly less, but the additional weight from the batteries chews through tires faster.

Why does everyone immediately pivot to EVs on this subject, instead of (looks around) gargantuan SUVs and trucks everywhere, due to peculiarities of US policies regulating SUVs more leniently than cars on fuel efficiency?

Why does everyone immediately pivot to SUVs on this subject, instead of (looks around) gargantuan Tesla Model Ys that weigh as much as a Ford Bronco and EV trucks everywhere, due to peculiarities of US consumer habits and the demand for huge vehicles to pick up groceries?

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#173

Post by sokoloff »

oasisbob wrote: post #82
tart-lemonade wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Fewer cars in general is the win from congestion pricing, though. And lower VMTs (vehicle miles traveled) is also a win for the planet, it's probably the best weapon the average person has access to in the fight against climate change. Transit usage begets transit usage; more fares paid to the agency enables better frequencies and more routes, leading to more people opting to take transit instead of driving... In a…

If we're speaking about individual actions, isn't avoiding air travel more effective than any other form of individual vehicle travel choice?

It depends on what you substitute it with.

If you substitute with “don’t travel far [or at all]”, it’s a big savings. If you substitute flying 1000 miles on an airliner with “drive 1000 miles instead”, or flying US to Europe with a cruise ship trip to Europe, you’ve probably made it worse; in that regards, it’s less the mode of travel and more the total distance in these trades.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#174

Post by GuB-42 »

Aurornis wrote: post #125
lkbm wrote: post #2

> Particulates issued from tailpipes can aggravate asthma and heart disease and increase the risk of lung cancer and heart attack. Globally, they are a leading risk factor for premature death. Minor nitpick, but tailpipes aren't the primary source of emissions. The study is about PM2.5[0]. which will chiefly be tires and brake pads. Modern gasoline engines are relatively clean, outside of CO2, though diesel engines s…

> though diesel engines spit out a bunch of bad stuff. Exactly. The noxious tailpipe emissions in a city are usually from diesel trucks, small vehicles like motorcycles (small or absent catalytic converters), modified vehicles (catalytic converter removed or diesel reprogrammed to smoke), but not modern gasoline ICE vehicles. The love for diesel engines in many European countries was always confusing to me. PM2.5 is…

I believe the popularity of diesel car in Europe is actually a tax-related hack.

The idea is that diesel is the "work" fuel, for shipping, construction, etc... While gasoline is the "consumer" fuel, for personal use, motorsports, etc... Make the former expensive and it will affect the entire economy, everything will become more expensive and less competitive. Making gasoline more expensive will not have the same impact.

So, put high taxes on gasoline. The result was an increase in popularity of diesel cars, that cost less to run because of taxes.

Now, the situation is changing. Diesel, at least the one that is legal to use on the road is taxed at a level closer to gasoline. Diesel cars are also becoming less and less welcome with regards to low emission zones and green taxes, so many people are going back to gasoline.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#175

Post by sigmar »

Projectiboga wrote: post #128

[flagged]

>If they cared about emissions they could try regulating idling, which worse emissions profiles

They do, in fact, regulate idling my dude- https://portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-02222

> In New York City, vehicle idling is illegal if it lasts more than 3 minutes or more than 1 minute when adjacent to a school.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#176

Post by lonelyasacloud »

biophysboy wrote: post #10
lkbm wrote: post #2

> Particulates issued from tailpipes can aggravate asthma and heart disease and increase the risk of lung cancer and heart attack. Globally, they are a leading risk factor for premature death. Minor nitpick, but tailpipes aren't the primary source of emissions. The study is about PM2.5[0]. which will chiefly be tires and brake pads. Modern gasoline engines are relatively clean, outside of CO2, though diesel engines s…

Is that true for slower moving vehicles? I can't imagine there's a lot of brake dust generated by stopping & starting in the 0-10 mph range.

Afraid the intuition is somewhat incorrect.

Similar to with tire wear what's important to emissions is the amount of force that has to be applied to decelerate and how often it occurs. At highway speeds it's far less of an issue, but in slow speed urban environments with lots of stop start driving and high vehicle densities it's a real problem.

See for instance https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat09/1...

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#177

Post by hamdingers »

bgirard wrote: post #17

Not surprising. The real question is how do we measure the opportunity cost of these measures? Is it a net gain? You could, at the extreme, ban all motor vehicles but the opportunity cost would outweigh the benefits.

Dynamic pricing based on congestion would solve this. It would also almost certainly result in higher costs for drivers though.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#179

Post by graeme »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #11

There was a study published about how much air pollution dropped in NYC during the COVID lockdown. PM2.5 was found to have dropped 36%. However with more robust analysis, this drop was discovered to not be statistically significant. I would caution anyone reading this who is tempted by confirmation bias. Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7314691/

"Not statistically significant" doesn't mean did not happen.

Given the physical mechanisms involved it is implausible that pollution did not decline. And if you look at their data you see a marked drop in 2020 at day 70

This is March 10 or thereabouts, I think. And there are ZERO high pm 2.5 days for a 20 day stretch or so. This isn't seen in other years. The vast bulk of days are below the trend.

And then for the rest of the year there are some days above the trend line but no high pm 2.5 days.

This fits with people being extra cautious in the early days and then relaxing a bit as things went on.

Now, I'm eyeballing this so I could be incorrect. But:

1. The effect was found in other cities

2. The physical mechanism makes it highly expected that there would be a drop

The study was about the slope of the regression modal, but if you had scrambled the years I'm fairly confident I could have picked 2020 out of the set.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#180

Post by awongh »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #168
Jon_Lowtek wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"relatively clean" means 85% of PM2.5 is from non-exhaust sources, and 15% is from exhaust after catalytic conversion. In New York EV and ICE are pretty much on par when it comes to this category of pollution, as the additional weight increases non exhaust sources. Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13522... It is different in Africa, where catalytic converters are harvested for precious m…

That source is Europe, not New York. It claims EV's are 24% heavier than ICE vehicles. That might be true in Europe but definitely not the case in the US where the average ICE vehicle is a 6000 pound truck and the average EV is a 4000 pound Tesla. It also assumes they're using the same tires. EV owners put on EV tires, which are formulated to have a lower rolling resistance, quieter and last longer. All 3 of those co…

But a 6000 pound truck doesn't get replaced with an EV sedan. Or vice versa. As things move to EV I don't know why the proportion of car body types (whatever you call this) wouldn't stay the same.
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