Wider gaps for cycle paths & traffic reduce commuters’ air pollution
Setting cycle and footpaths further back from the road can significantly lower the amount of air pollution that cyclists and pedestrians inhale, suggests new research. While wide gaps are not always practical, the study shows that even small increases in distance could substantially reduce the dose of pollution.
As a London cyclist, the idea of greater distance from traffic could only be contemplated in the outskirts. No choice but to be in the thick of it. Here, I've joined a team trying to help some medics studying the impacts on cyclists of collisions. It's a great initiative launched by some cycling doctors from The Royal London and Barts hospital A&E teams. The hypothesis, if you like, is that the number of very serious injuries presenting to A&E departments is only the tip of the iceberg. Understandably perhaps, media attention is focussed on the deaths. There's no reliable data on anything else. These guys are trying to capture factual data and some contextual data on everything from "near misses" upwards. The idea is not to show how dangerous cycling in a city is to get people off their bikes but, rather, to create a data-set to justify proper action to make cycling safer. Two great pieces of work: Bespoke (the academic study) and Collideoscope (a smartphone app for reporting accidents and near misses, which plots them on a map and can help feed data into the Bespoke study). Look them up!
Sustainability. Ideas & process person. Collaborating to fix the damage done to planet Earth.
10 年How's the cycling in Notts Andy? In Newcastle it is so so. You still have to be confident or brace to cycle to work.