Air pollution levels have fallen up to 50%

Air pollution levels have fallen up to 50% in many European cities, according to the latest figures

This significant decrease in air pollutant concentrations is  largely due to reduced traffic, especially in major cities under last lockdown measures. The COVID19 crisis has highlighted the direct connection of air pollution to mobility.

Many Europeans are discovering the potential of cycling these days since it´s the safest means of moving around the city. Indeed, cycling has become increasingly safe as the number of motorised vehicles on the road has been cut dramatically. Cycling also automatically keeps people at the social distance recommended by virologists. It is said that nothing will be the same after COVID19, can the EU then come back to a mobility model with such costs for European lives?

Post by

http://www.ecf.com  Alberto Vela     Communications Assistant

Read More : https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/air-pollution-falls-minimums-due-reduced-traffic-during-quarantine-what-can

 

 

 

Build Compact and Connected Cities

Barcelona and Atlanta provide a striking comparison. Both have similarly sized populations but very different densities and dominant transport modes. The majority of Atlanta’s residents drive private cars, whereas Barcelona residents primarily take mass transit and walk. In part as a result, Atlanta has 18 times more traffic fatalities on average every year.

 

Why? For every 1 percent change toward a more compact and connected urban form, all-mode traffic fatality rates fall by 1.5 percent, and pedestrian fatality rates decrease by 1.5-3.6 percent.

Whole CityFix Document by WRI

 

 

Urgent action needed to tackle deaths of pedestrians and cyclists

A new Pin Flash Report published by ETSC today is calling on more action concerning the safety of vru´s (vulnerable road users)

french Resumé: Pin 38 F

Deaths ( and serious injuries ?) of cyclists in the EU have fallen eight times more slowly than deaths of motor vehicle occupants in the EU since 2010,  ETSC is calling for urgent action to ensure that sustainable modes of transport such as walking and cycling, are made much safer.

99% of pedestrian deaths, and 83% of cyclist deaths recorded are as a consequence of an impact with a motor vehicle.  These groups are, by far, the least likely to harm other road users.

The research revealed that half of all cyclists and pedestrians that die on EU roads are over the age of 65. Older people are more fragile and less able to recover from serious injuries. However, Europe’s aging population needs to stay active and mobile for reasons of health and wellbeing. ETSC says the challenge is how to improve safety while walking or cycling, particularly for high-risk groups such as the elderly and children.

What can ( should) be done:

Report 38 (pdf): 38e PIN FLASH ETSC

E-Scooters & Injuries

Urban Health Scare: E-Scooters Show Alarming Spike in Injuries

Hospital Admissions Quadrupled in Last Four Years, UCSF Study Finds, Mainly in Young Adults  

Nearly a third of the patients suffered head trauma – more than twice the rate of head injuries to bicyclists.

“E-scooters are a fast and convenient form of transportation and help to lessen traffic congestion, especially in dense, high-traffic areas but we’re very concerned about the significant increase in injuries and hospital admissions that we documented, particularly during the last year, and especially with young people, where the proportion of hospital admissions increased 354 percent.” 

Danger for other VRU’s?

Future research into pedestrian and cyclist trauma associated with e-scooter use is needed

more: Patient Care January 8, 2020

By Elizabeth Fernandez

Pedestrian deaths

Several factors contribute to these crashes, but something experts agree has played a significant role in the fatality increase in recent years is the rise of SUVs. Over the past decade, pedestrian deaths involving SUVs jumped up 81%, a bigger bump than any other vehicle, according to the IIHS.

Picture: Peter Carr/The Journal News

1. Higher front ends of SUVs are more likely to cause injury to pedestrians’ chests and heads.
2.  Distraction by smartphones could also be adding to roadway dangers:People — including drivers and pedestrians — can’t stop looking at their phones
3. Alcohol — for the driver or the pedestrian:32% of pedestrian fatalities involve a pedestrian with a blood alcohol content of .08% or higher, and 17% of those deaths involve a driver who has a BAC of at least .08% (NHTSA)

According to the traffic safety institute, the top three contributing factors to pedestrian crashes in 2018 were failure to yield right-of-way, driver inattention or distraction, and pedestrian error or confusion.

But what about speed: we all know the difference between death or live through the differnce of 50km/h versus 30km/h:

more: Matt Spillane Rockland/Westchester Journal News Published 8:57 AM EST Jan 14, 2020

 

Vision ZERO in OSLO

Reducing the number of cars reduced the number of traffic fatalities

Oslo has not only reduced the number of places where it is possible to drive, the city has also lowered the speed limit, which significantly contributes to a reduction in deaths, said Christoffer Solstad Steen of Trygg Trafik.

Before and after:

Oslo saw zero pedestrian and cyclist deaths in 2019.

Progress was also uneven for Oslo in the early years after setting its own Vision Zero goal. But it’s Oslo’s car-free zones that have made the difference.

more: Vision Zero Oslo

Road Design to save lives Well explained – easy to understand

and not so complicated to have it installed

WRI Brasil explains six simple road design changes that can significantly improve road safety. These changes put people – not vehicles – at the center of design to reduce speeds, demand more awareness from drivers and create more opportunities for safe crossings. They can even help make cities greener.

thx WRI

watch on YouTube:

6 Road Design Changes That Can Save Lives

More: https://www.wri.org/publication/cities-safer-design

Pedestrian master plan to make walking safer

In Montgomery County, where more people are killed in road “accidents” than in homicides, problems, planners say, will be addressed in first-ever pedestrian master plan aimed at making walking safer and more appealing in this Washington suburb where the car has long been king.

More pedestrians and cyclists are dying. Nationwide, overall traffic fatalities declined in 2018, for the second-straight year, but the number of pedestrians and cyclists killed was up by 3.4 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Many are wrestling with a central tenet of Vision Zero: Redesigning roads to lower speeds and reduce the severity of crashes. Planners and traffic engineers are narrowing lanes, lowering speed limits, adding crosswalks and making crossings more visible with brighter paint or flashing lights. They’re also separating vehicles and people via more-protected bike lanes and wider medians for pedestrians who can get only halfway across the road before the pedestrian lights turn red.

Photo by Ricardo Esquivel on Pexels.com

Leah Shahum, the founder of the Vision Zero Network, said: ” he benefit of reducing speeds is just a matter of physics.”

A pedestrian struck by a vehicle traveling at 30 km/h has an 80-90 percent chance of surviving. If the vehicle is traveling at 50 km/h, the pedestrian’s chance of survival plummets to 10-20 percent.

“I truly believe there’s been a sea change in thinking,” Amy Ginsburg, the executive director of Friends of White Flint said. “Everyone is realizing people want to get out of their cars. Now it’s just a matter of undoing 50 years of car-centric planning to make that a reality.”

Read on Washington Post the whole article by Katherine Shaver:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/suburbs-try-vision-zero-to-protect-walkers-and-cyclists-on-roads-designed-for-vehicles/2019/11/30/4b29e3fc-1081-11ea-b0fc-62cc38411ebb_story.html?fbclid=IwAR3KLZ5abOgU_hHBaeeLNu3qWW6DZrhSNq_-IjFGMqRSOr_OH4ypNMpVAmc

A public health approach creates different layers for how we design streets

By Streetsblock NYC

 

Mary Beth Kelly of Families for Safe Streets has been calling on state health authorities to declare this year’s increase in all city road deaths a “public health emergency,” which would give city officials emergency powers to solve the problem —

“These crashes are too frequent, too predictable, too deadly, and, most importantly, preventable!”  “We have the anti-virus — [and] this epidemic, and like any other, requires cultural and systemic intervention. … But we lack the political will to change a culture dominated by cars and speed.

And need our health community! We need you in this struggle to save lives and eliminate the intense and widespread suffering that this scourge inflicts on our families and our communities

That said, New York is extremely late to the party when it comes to assessing traffic violence as a health problem rather than a transportation problem. London, for example, doesn’t merely seek to create “safe streets,” but mandates the notion of “healthy streets.” Under the “Healthy Streets for London” program started by Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2016 [PDF], roadways are not merely designed for safety for cyclists and drivers, but also to make sure pedestrians are safe from crashes, from anxiety, from noise or even from being discouraged from walking at all.

That public health lens has helped reduce fatalities, which are dramatically lower than New York this year, even though greater London has a half-million more people.

“If 30,000 people were killed each year in the United States by a curable illness, we would call it a public health crisis. We would deploy resources, vaccines and interventions to address the spread and bring the death toll to the only acceptable level: zero,” the Vision Zero Network said in a 2016 report.

whole article: Road Carnage Caused by SUVs

Brent Toderian on urban transportation & mobility

Here is a Video where Brent, a city planner and urban designer  explains very well what we did often wrong in building urban infrastructure for cars and not for people and how it should work.

  @BrentToderian

WATCH: This is quite possibly the most comprehensive interview I’ve ever done on urban transportation & mobility. Filmed in Vienna for an upcoming Paris-based documentary. Watch it, quote it, & please spread it around.