Paper Details

TRB 91st Annual Meeting (January 22-26, 2012)

Event Number:	539
Event Title:	Bicycle Planning and the Built Environment
Event Date:	Jan 24 2012 10:45AM- 12:30PM
Event Location:	Hilton, International Center
Event Description:
Event Agenda:

Investigating Link Between Cyclist Volumes and Pollution Levels Along Bicycle Facilities in Dense Urban Core (12-3161)

Cycling as a mode of travel is becoming more popular especially in dense urban areas and with this reality comes concerns for cyclist safety. These concerns have lead to different studies focusing on injury occurrence and severity analyses as well as helmet effectiveness and bicycle facility design. An issue that has yet to attract much attention is cyclist exposure to traffic-related air pollution. Cyclists generally ride alongside cars and therefore are exposed to higher ground-level concentrations of nitrogen oxides (NOX), carbon monoxide (CO), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), fine particulate matter and ground-level ozone which could lead to adverse health outcomes. In this paper we explore the air pollution levels along different types of bicycle facilities using a nitrogen dioxide (NO2) land-use regression model previously developed for Montreal. A comparison of over twenty cycling corridors is carried out as well as an evaluation of the potential exposure of cyclists to air pollution along five different routes. As expected, we observe that corridors with either a bicycle lane or cycle track generally rank higher in terms of bicycle volumes; they also have higher NO2 concentrations than corridors without bicycle facilities. This indicates that facilities that attract a large number of cyclists are also the ones that are characterized with higher pollution levels. The paper ends with a discussion on the use of these findings to inform the development of a personal exposure monitoring study for cyclists in Montreal.

Authors
     Strauss, Jillian , McGill University, Canada
     Miranda-Moreno, Luis Fernando, McGill University, Canada
     Crouse, Dan , Health Canada
     Goldberg, Mark S., McGill University, Canada
     Ross, Nancy , McGill University, Canada
     Hatzopoulou, Marianne , McGill University, Canada