I actually thought this article had a lot of relevant data regarding New York City’s air pollution situation and plan on using it as one of the sources for my paper- thanks Jess! I found it surprising that the New York City Community Air Survey was only first conducted a few years ago; I guess that just shows how it took so long before the city recognized air pollution as a significant problem. The numbers in this study were pretty convincing for me. When the survey was conducted a few years ago it was estimated that fine particles cause more than 2,000 deaths, 4,800 emergency department asthma related visits, and 1,500 hospitalizations for respiratory and cardiovascular disease annually. It was uplifting to read that these numbers were a significant improvement from years prior to projects such as PlaNYC, however I think there needs to be a lot more invested in researching how to lower these numbers even further. In a city as busy and bustling and New York, people should have other things to worry about besides whether or not the air they’re breathing is noxious to them.
The article mentions that public transit contributes a good amount of the problematic pollutants in our air. When I typed in “MTA goes green” on google, the first results that came up were for Maryland’s public transit system. Their entire website demonstrates their mission to be as environmentally friendly as possible; they even have a carbon calculator which will help you estimate the potential reduction of carbon dioxide emissions you can achieve by switching part or all of your travel to public transportation. I think New York’s MTA is slowly making the right steps towards a greener form of public transportation but they still have a lot they can do and a lot of other organizations to learn from.
