Advocacy & Safety - Should Atlantans be out there riding in this stuff?

Atlanta is such a wonderful place. :p
They are first (or last depending on your point of view) on many impressive lists; like leading the nation (actually tied with Houston) as the worst cycling city in America.

Already at the beginning of summer the city is on another list. The city has already (like last year) violated the Federal Clean Air Act by having ozone concentrations higher than allowed. :mad:

I like this quote from the referenced article.
"Wesley Woolf of the Southern Environmental Law Center said the readings bolster his group's litigation against the EPA to force it to take away metro Atlanta's road construction money --- and put it in transit options."

Here is the entire article.
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/friday/metro_d30095f99345023a006b.html

Here's my view on it.

I try to stay out of the ozone. The best way is to become familiar with the smog patterns, for example:

1) Windless days can be worse for smog.
2) The later it gets (in the summer) past 4:00, the worse it gets for smog.
3) If it rains, ozone drops to almost nothing.
4) These are all generalizations. In Georgia, call the Environmental Protection Division's air pollution standard reporting system at (404) 362-4909 for an hourly report for your city.

Today, Friday, June 7, is not a smog alert day. At 3:00 today, the estimated air quality index for Atlanta was 48, considered, "Good." 0-50 is "Good," 51-100 is "Moderate," 101-150 is "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups," 151-200 is "Unhealthy," etc.

Unless the smog is already high in the morning (not having cleared adequately from the previous day,) there is a good chance that I can make it home before 6:00 when the smog levels frequently begin to be "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups," or "Unhealthy." But I've seen smog levels higher than 250! I don't even let my 6 year-old daughter outside at these times.

The smog levels often become troublesome after 6:00 pm and continue to rise until the peak sometime around 10:00 pm. They level off and then fall back to "Good" levels by early morning, before most of us ever wake up.

No, I am very concerned about riding in high ozone levels and will not ride in it: I avoid it like the plague. I have had "lung burn" many times in the past, before I knew about ozone. Now, I watch the smog levels religiously in the summer (and I rant obsessively about the evils of gasoline-powered vehicles.)

:mad:

Which is worse, the air or the exhaust from cars? I know...the cars cause the air to be unhealthy to breathe.

When will people learn......:confused:

It is the cars. Check the air pollution of any Georgia city (call EPD)
and see. The more population (cars) the more smog.

I've added the following image to my (local) home page so I can see at a glance what the Air Quality Index (AQI) is here in Atlanta.

http://www.air.dnr.state.ga.us/tmp/today/hourly_ATLANTA_AQI.gif

That, together with the satellite view and dopler radar, gives me a quick snapshot of what it's like like out there.

Here's a link for the Atlanta AQI forecast:

http://www.air.dnr.state.ga.us/psg/index.html

Do a search, you may have something similar for your area.

Kevin S.

One more link. This page has links to the AQI forecast for cities all over the US.

http://www.epa.gov/cgi-bin/airnow.cgi?MapDisplay=FORECAST

Kevin S.

Fortunately, I don't live in a city where the air is ever that bad, but I have bicycled in China where the air was so bad that it knocked me into bed for three days with aching lungs. I feel sorry for Atlanans.

It is ironic that the very cause of the pollution (combustion engine automobiles) is exactly what people are forced into using due to the unbearable conditions OUTSIDE the automobile. The problem compounds and the hope for a simple solution is lost.

Clearly, the combustion engine is the heroin of modern transportation. You can't live without it, but it will eventually kill you.

Originally posted by mike
Clearly, the combustion engine is the heroine [Do you mean heroin, Mike? Actually, the sentence may make sense either way ...] of modern transportation. You can't live without it, but it will eventually kill you.

This is precisely why we need to keep pressuring our lawmakers to force the automakers to meet increasingly stringent emissions standards. The technology does exist, and it becomes increasingly affordable with mass-production experience and value engineering. The good(?) news is that the levels of certain air pollutants tend to be very high INSIDE cars, as well as outside.

Originally posted by mike

Clearly, the combustion engine is the heroin of modern transportation. You can't live without it, but it will eventually kill you.
Great analogy, Mike! Perhaps another analogy could be made between driving and cigarette smoking: the greatest damage to the lungs often goes unnoticed because the smoker puts no real demands upon the lungs through exercise, much like car drivers who don't notice how much ozone is bothering them because they aren't bicycling.