• Road air pollution major factor in London girl’s death rules coroner (Guardian)
• Illuminated River project to light up more Thames bridges (NewCivilEng)
• Review of Christian Wolmar’s Cathedrals of Steam (OnLondon)
• History of tramways in Paris, & Pascalian origin of mass transit (FabricOfParis)
• Century old explosives detonate in Mount Royal tunnelling (MontrealGazette)
• How two towns re-imagined abandoned railway relics (SeanMarshall)
• Jaywalking laws were created to excuse drivers (CityLab)
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“Air Pollution” – *cough* – but London’s air is, now cleaner than at any time since about 1800, isn’t it?
Never let inconvenient facts get in the way of a good story, after all.
“Cathedrals of Steam” – presumably to be put on the shelf with Simon Jenkins’ “Britain’s 100 best Railway Stations” & the classic “London’s Termini” by Jackson – or even the other Betjeman & Gay classic volume.
Lots of very interesting history in today’s selection – thank you.
@Greg T
On average, yes London’s air is cleaner than previous centuries. However the devil is in the details,as these maps modelling the NO2 pollution levels in London demonstrate – from vehicle pollution. Hence those poor and unfortunate enough to live along and close to major roads experience magnitudes greater levels of pollution. Not shewn on these maps are the high levels of tyre particulate pollution, which is only the latest discovery of numerous toxic compounds produced by road based vehicles.
The article about jaywalking raises serious issues. As a counterpoint (which may support rather than undermine the point about the relationship between jaywalking as a function of status in society), many of the Americans who visited the Falklands as cruise ship passengers (before the pandemic) seemed quite happy to walk down the middle of the front road in Stanley as if it were a pedestrian mall … it isn’t, especially at 12, 1 and 4.30!
LBM
I find the “Tire Pollution” figures bitterly amusing, as it shows that supposedly cleaning up exhausts is actually not going to do any significant good. [Most really dirty-exhaust vehicles are going, anyway]
And, IIRC (Open to correction) lichens & other plant-indicators of pollution levels are “not happy” with high levels of NO2 as the resulting acid(s) that come from mixing those Oxides with water don’t do the “plants” any good at all.
It looks like the only solution to tyre pollution is smaller and lighter vehicles. Helpfully that also cuts emissions.
Bikes are one obvious answer but so are Japanese-style light trucks (Kei trucks weigh 700kg vs about double that for a Transit).
@Bob hard-wearing concrete, or preferably granite, road surfaces and removing IC vehicles would be way to go in the medium term, but reducing traffic volumes and moving as much as possible onto steel wheels or the river (perhaps with cable haulage up/down stream) is probably the only complete solution.
@Greg T part of what makes tyre pollution so bad is the emissions from engines that coat the powdered rubber, but pollutants from the tar are also a problem, as is the rubber itself.