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Edinburgh sees increase in number of polluted streets

(17 posts)
  • Started 12 years ago by kaputnik
  • Latest reply from crowriver

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  1. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Edinburgh sees increase in number of polluted streets

    Environmentalists are calling for "urgent action" after an increase in the number of Edinburgh streets affected by transport pollution.

    There are now an additional six miles of streets that have been deemed officially polluted in the capital.

    Tourist areas Princes Street, George Street, most of the Royal Mile and the Grassmarket are all now included.

    So lets encourage more people to drive into town with super-underground carparks, eh George Street trader's group?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  2. Snowy
    Member

    Just wondering how Princes Street has made it onto the list bearing in mind that most of it doesn't have cars on it. Where is the air quality sampling unit located, does anyone know?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  3. chdot
    Admin

    http://www.scottishairquality.co.uk

    http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/8781/no2_data_guidance

    Posted 12 years ago #

  4. Snowy
    Member

    Unless I'm missing something, there's a sampling unit on Queen Street, and that's the only one for the city centre. So presumably they extrapolate the readings from that unit to include a certain radius of surrounding streets.

    If so, this might be slightly unfair on Princes Street, since it's highly believeable that the Queen Street sampling unit sees a lot of pollution from all the traffic currently routed along there, but not at all clear how Princes St could suffer the same issue.

    The danger is that if they extrapolate readings in a faulty manner, you end up with faulty solutions being proposed to 'solve' the problem...

    Posted 12 years ago #

  5. chdot
    Admin

    " there's a sampling unit on Queen Street, and that's the only one for the city centre"

    I think that's true. Presume they do temp monitoring, like -

    http://robedwards.typepad.com/files/waverley-air-quality-report.pdf

    Posted 12 years ago #

  6. Dave
    Member

    Princes St has hundreds of large diesels more or less idling along its length (particularly westbound, east of the mound), so you can well believe that it's a stinker for toxins.

    Leith St is awful too.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  7. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Indeed, Princes Street is waaaaaaaaay busier with traffic than Queen Street. Just cos there aren't any cars doesn't mean there isn't polluting traffic.

    Have these streets definitely just been indcluded by extrapolation? Or have they had temporary sensors put in place?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  8. PS
    Member

    Leith St is simply not adequately designed for what it's asked to take. Bus stops, buses pulling out, bus lanes, two lanes of traffic, races for the traffic lights, tight corner at the top, lots of stationary traffic, central railings. It's a shocker. And just round the corner is the lovely broad Waterloo Place, which is barely used...

    Posted 12 years ago #

  9. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Yeah, the buses I take into town from my house all come in along London Road - certainly the choice of three that I use. Always wondered why there's not even at least one uses Regent Road.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  10. chdot
    Admin


    Monitoring Queen Street

    Posted 12 years ago #

  11. Snowy
    Member

    Had to do a bit of digging.

    It seems there are 'permanent' analysers set up in 6 locations in the city. All of the permanent analysers measure Nitrogen Dioxide(NO2).

    Additionally, there are mobile 'Passive Diffusion Tube' detectors which collect NO2 data for a month at a time. The quantity of these or frequency of their use in Edinburgh is not listed anywhere that I can find.

    Particulates(PM10) are measured at about half of the permanent analysing stations (including Queen St). However mobile PDT detectors do not measure PM10.

    2012 report here

    Particulate exposure is known to be highly localised, and the above report does recognise that. As far as cyclists are concerned, diesel engines are the killers, whether bus or car.

    I'd like to see greater efforts made to measure PM10 at times and places where it's having the greatest effect on the largest number of people, such as rush hour on Princes St with all the buses. We assume that this is being carefully monitored, but the evidence is that PM10 at well-known blackspots simply isn't being measured.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  12. kaputnik
    Moderator

    I think I've seen some of those tubes up on the lamp posts on Melville Drive.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  13. Instography
    Member

    The fence of Queen Street Gardens is often festooned with various little tubes, each labelled differently. They appear one day, hang around for a while and then are taken away.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  14. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    "As far as cyclists are concerned, diesel engines are the killers, whether bus or car."

    Quite a good reason not to have a two-way cycleway on Princes Street then....?

    *runs away throwing a flaming torch at the thread*

    Posted 12 years ago #

  15. crowriver
    Member

    And just round the corner is the lovely broad Waterloo Place, which is barely used...

    Oh please don't start encouraging them to ruin Regent Road too, it's a decent quietish route for cycling. As it is, Waterloo Place is full of bus stops for Wurst services, and all the tourist coaches park up Regent Road. It doesn't need to get any busier.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  16. Kim
    Member

    You also have to remember that it is not just fixed air pollution monitoring, there are now mobile devices which people can carry around with them which show individual exposure to air pollution. There are three research groups working on the effects of air pollution on human health in Edinburgh (Edinburgh Uni, Heriot Watt and CEH), all of which are carrying out personal exposure monitoring. This monitoring has greatly improved the modelling of how the air pollution disperses, and is far more accurate than just relying on the fix monitoring stations.

    As for the air pollution levels in Princes Street, don't forget there very large diesel engines running back and forth through a ditch in Princes Street Gardens as well as the buses on Princes Street its self.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  17. crowriver
    Member

    This might help a bit:

    http://greenerleith.org.uk/blog/hybrid-buses-debut-on-easter-road-2547

    Posted 12 years ago #

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