Aired 6/6/2020. Kaid Benfield of Placemakers, and Susan Polan of the American Public Health Association join HLHP Radio to speak about transportation pollution, mobility and the impact on our people and planet.
Kaid connects our driving habits and the impacts on our environment. The effect of cars on environmental pollution has, no doubt, grown over the past century. In fact, statistic show our traffic has grown 5 times more quickly than our population. Moreover, as Americans our most comfortable and convenient mode of mobility is private car. American’s trips are made by car 85% of the time, while Europeans use private vehicles to make their trips 50-60% of the time. Kaid explains that this vast difference in percentage may result from our city layouts. In short, more compact cities make for shorter drive times and distances, and thus less pollution. Kaid reminds the listeners that transportation accounts for 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions in our environment, which leads to climate change. Kaid also speaks about the opportunity to arise from COVID-19 with a different approach to transportation and the environment.
Susan unpacks the connection between transportation pollution and human health. While transportation releases greenhouse gases into our environment, these pollutants also impact our bodies. With transportation as the leader in pollution, we have seen increased problems with asthma, heart disease, obesity, malaria and even Lyme disease. We also miss out on health benefits when our cities are built around cars, such as biking, walking. Susan reminds the listeners that the communities who are most vulnerable and susceptible to these health conditions, are often those who contribute less to the transportation pollution, thus they are left with all the health consequences and without a voice. Susan closes by speaking about the impact of COVID-19 and the increased car crashes as a result of reckless driving, and cautions listeners to be careful on the roads.
