A different kind of toll
Posted April 26th, 2007 in Roads, Urbanism
Tony Abbott instructs the National Health and Medical Research Council to investigate the air quality of road tunnels.
The NHMRC is understood to have obtained initial data on the problem, focusing on levels of nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, photochemical oxidants, sulphur dioxide, lead and particulate matter.
The NHMRC has gathered an expert panel to analyse the data as it seeks to establish suitable exposure limits and possibly develop standards for air quality around tunnels.
Maybe the ministers bicycle riding efforts are starting to have an effect on his thinking.
technorati tags: sydney, roads, air, quality, pollution
What others have to say…
Hmm, url didn’t take. Here it is: http://www.icta.org/doc/In-car%20pollution%20report.pdf
hmmm remind me whose electorate the Lane Cove Tunnel is in?
Speaking from personal experience, the air quality in both the Burnley & Domain tunnels is truly appalling. (As I’ve ridden three times through them with a couple hundred of my closest friends)
Burnley had to be the worst, there was virtually no oxygen and the combined exhaust stench and God knows what was seriously disconcerting. In retrospect we should taken a portable air sensor system along for the ride.
Ah, those were the days …
I haven’t been game enough to try it but a rider I know did (accidentally, would you believe) ride through the Sydney Harbour Tunnel from north to south, not long after it opened. He had 2 points to make (a) that hill is steeper than it looks in a car and (b) the choking fumes are incredibly bad. I have opened a car window in slow tunnel traffic and can confirm it’s diabolical - certainly very concentrated, stings the eyes and so on. I wouldn’t ride a bike in it. Just riding in the city in slow traffic is enough to make you realise that although ADR27A and its ilk cleaned up the most obvious car pollution there’s still plenty more to go around.
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I had a week off last week and due to not being organised enough to have basic spares like gear cables in the house drove in to the city.
I thought I’d play nice and set off around about ten thirty, well after peak. What an absolute disaster. I should have turned the bike in to a single speed for the ride in and trained / bussed it home. One hour fifty, bumper to bumper, with the car filling up with noxious fumes. I was literally coughing by the time I got to my destination.
I don’t know if this is news to you or not: In-Car Air Pollution, the Hidden Threat to Automobile Drivers