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Air quality map shows Toronto’s most polluted neighbourhoods
An air pollution map produced by the team pinpoints Toronto’s air-pollution hot spots, showing that areas near highways and major intersections can have three to four times the average amount of ultrafine particles put out by vehicle tailpipes.
High-pollution areas affect both wealthy and poor neighbourhoods in the city, creating an invisible health divide that no one was aware of until now.
“We’ve found that the variability of exposure across the city is quite a bit larger than we expected,” said Greg Evans, a professor of engineering at U of T. “It’s not that there’s one level of air pollution that covers the entire city; it’s that people will have different levels of exposure in different parts of the city, depending on how much surrounding traffic there is.”
“Air pollution itself is quite a complex soup of chemicals, and some of the ones that people pay the most attention to (such as ozone and medium-sized particles) tend to be much more homogeneous across the city,” Evans said. “But when you look at other pollutants that are more specific to traffic (such as ultrafine particles) you start to find that there’s much greater variability.”
Ultrafine particles, linked to diesel vehicles, can be twice as prevalent downwind from major roads as they are upwind, Evans said. The air pollution map accounts for daily variations by using average readings taken over an entire summer.
It shows that the bottom of Highway 427 and its intersection with Highway 401 near Pearson airport are heavily polluted, as well as areas surrounding the junctions of the Don Valley Parkway and Highway 401, Steeles Ave. W. and Highway 400, and Steeles Ave. E and Highway 404.
Scarborough Town Centre is a vicinity of concern, as is the neighbourhood between Keele St. and Dufferin St. south of the 401.
Smaller pockets near the DVP and Eglinton Ave E., Sheppard Ave. W. and Highway 400, and Eglinton Ave. E. and Birchmount Rd. have heavy pollution, as does a swath of the eastern downtown, from the Gardiner Expressway to Dundas St., and from Yonge St. to Leslie St.
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I live in the Bluffs close to the lake, and the air does seem cleaner there, in my unscientific just-breathing-it-in testing method.
My sister lives on the waterfront, and I'm not sure it feels as clean, but right next to the water on the boardwalk it's usually nice, unless you're standing next to a big diesel powered boat. Then it's horrible. Plus, not as sure about her building since it's right next to Lakeshore Blvd. However, as suggested, I guess what I'm noticing are probably the smells from diesel trucks, which are related but not necessarily quite the same thing as this study. I don't smell it in her building at all, but I can smell it occasionally standing on the sidewalk in front of her building since it's next to the main road. Also, she lives by the airport, so perhaps there's that.
An air pollution map produced by the team pinpoints Toronto’s air-pollution hot spots, showing that areas near highways and major intersections can have three to four times the average amount of ultrafine particles put out by vehicle tailpipes.
High-pollution areas affect both wealthy and poor neighbourhoods in the city, creating an invisible health divide that no one was aware of until now.
“We’ve found that the variability of exposure across the city is quite a bit larger than we expected,” said Greg Evans, a professor of engineering at U of T. “It’s not that there’s one level of air pollution that covers the entire city; it’s that people will have different levels of exposure in different parts of the city, depending on how much surrounding traffic there is.”
“Air pollution itself is quite a complex soup of chemicals, and some of the ones that people pay the most attention to (such as ozone and medium-sized particles) tend to be much more homogeneous across the city,” Evans said. “But when you look at other pollutants that are more specific to traffic (such as ultrafine particles) you start to find that there’s much greater variability.”
Ultrafine particles, linked to diesel vehicles, can be twice as prevalent downwind from major roads as they are upwind, Evans said. The air pollution map accounts for daily variations by using average readings taken over an entire summer.
It shows that the bottom of Highway 427 and its intersection with Highway 401 near Pearson airport are heavily polluted, as well as areas surrounding the junctions of the Don Valley Parkway and Highway 401, Steeles Ave. W. and Highway 400, and Steeles Ave. E and Highway 404.
Scarborough Town Centre is a vicinity of concern, as is the neighbourhood between Keele St. and Dufferin St. south of the 401.
Smaller pockets near the DVP and Eglinton Ave E., Sheppard Ave. W. and Highway 400, and Eglinton Ave. E. and Birchmount Rd. have heavy pollution, as does a swath of the eastern downtown, from the Gardiner Expressway to Dundas St., and from Yonge St. to Leslie St.
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I live in the Bluffs close to the lake, and the air does seem cleaner there, in my unscientific just-breathing-it-in testing method.
My sister lives on the waterfront, and I'm not sure it feels as clean, but right next to the water on the boardwalk it's usually nice, unless you're standing next to a big diesel powered boat. Then it's horrible. Plus, not as sure about her building since it's right next to Lakeshore Blvd. However, as suggested, I guess what I'm noticing are probably the smells from diesel trucks, which are related but not necessarily quite the same thing as this study. I don't smell it in her building at all, but I can smell it occasionally standing on the sidewalk in front of her building since it's next to the main road. Also, she lives by the airport, so perhaps there's that.
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