Monday’s Friday Reads – 16 September 2019

On By In Data, Friday Reads, Maps, Pedestrians

• Experience London transport in a wheelchair, without working hands (CityMetric)

• CR Mackintosh’s Gothic railway terminus design (MackintoshArch)

• How safe is the air in five major cities? (FT)

• How developers are remaking Boston’s transit (BisNow)

• Tech giants ignoring safety pleas to add rail crossings to maps (Verge)

• The cult of the fantasy pedestrian (StrongTowns)

• Physicists analyse public transport access data (Bloomberg)

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6 comments

  1. The refusal by Google & others to show “LC’s” is completely beyond my comprehension, especiallyas existing paper maps for anywhere will show them ….
    However, didn’t google have to be kicked to show suburban rail services, some years ago, because of theor US-centric attitude … (?)

    Meanwhile, I’m afraid the cult of the Fantasy Pedestrian is alive here as well … along with the fantasy cyclist too.

  2. The very worrying suggestion in the FT article that air quality on London Underground is worse on the streets, at least in certain important dimensions, deserves to be better known. I find that it was noted earlier this year by the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants, but it has not got much notice.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-46820584

    Also salutory to learn that London air pollution was recorded as second worst of the 5 cities studied here, but this was a rather unscientific exercise.

  3. I do think that municipalities should treat desire lines with caution. After all, drivers are people too, and following driver’s desire lines would lead to the installation of motorways through every urban core.

    But if promoting walking and cycling is a priority (either directly or to reduce pollution) then formally implementing desire lines is low hanging fruit to create a modal shift.

  4. Can’t view FT article without subscribing in some way. However, for Ivan’s comment, note should be taken that particulate matter in the air on the tube includes a mass of human detritus – especially skin particles and hair – that gets blown through (and settles in) the tunnels with the passing of the trains. The go to documentary is this 1989 BBC Archive to see the “fluffers” at work cleaning up the place:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0074tkn/40-minutes-heart-of-the-angel
    Might need to ‘sign in’ to view. See especially from 19:15 in.

    In days past, the main pollutant would have been the asbestos from the trains’ brake linings, followed closely perhaps by the iron filings from those same brake blocks as they wore down, and lastly perhaps pollution from smoking passengers. King’s Cross on the Westbound Piccadilly was renowned for the dust clouds as the trains approached the platforms at speed through the tunnels. In latter days, rheostatic and regenerative braking alleviated much of the airborne product of train braking from the brake blocks. I suggest that wheel/rail wear to be negligible in this respect, so it’s really down to the passengers themselves who bring their own pollution with them to rub off onto others!

  5. The FT article is rather unscientific, so you aren’t missing much except an impression. Here’s the properly scientific study on air pollution on the tube.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/particulate-air-pollution-on-london-underground-health-effects

    The composition of pollution in the tube is, as you say, very different from a road environment. The main concern in the tube in terms of particles has been metals and other heavy elements. Iron is clearly the main metal particulate present, but there are numerous other transition and post-transition elements present, including cadmium and arsenic, to an extent not found in road environments. The committee has been unable to decide which is worse than the other, despite citing quite a lot of studies. I found no specific discussion of the effect of exposure to particles of textile fibre and human skin that are likely to accumulate in the tube to a greater extent than outdoors. This was their conclusion:

    “Given the absence of any consistent evidence on the relative toxicity per unit mass exposure of underground PM and that in ambient air, there is insufficient evidence to provide quantitative comment on the risk associated with inhalation of particles on the London Underground.”

    They note that some other underground systems have much cleaner air than LUL, notably Taipei.

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