CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
BBC concerned about cyclists' health
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12298562
Sounds like a fellow scientist trying to get publicity for her work.
What I can't understand is the concentration in the article on cyclists. Motorists and pedestrians are also exposed to airbourne pullutants, though I don't know who is exposed the most.
And what is it about many van drivers? They like to sit in their parked vans with the engine running. Don't they pay for their fuel? Or do they need to make a quick getaway?
"Motorists and pedestrians are also exposed to airbourne pullutants, though I don't know who is exposed the most."
Well - most car drivers fail to understand that their passenger compartment air intakes are around the level of the exhaust pipe in front.
Perhaps 'we' should worry about those low slung cyclists on here...
"Perhaps 'we' should worry about those low slung cyclists on here... "
Oer!
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cyclestreets: Shoddy stories (with bad photography) like this make me angry http://bbc.in/hqmSc6
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Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/cyclestreets/status/30909298599006209
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cyclestreets: @cyclestreets BBC article also wilfully misses the point: particulates known to be WAY higher in car users' breath & blood than cyclists'
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Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/cyclestreets/status/30915714789412864
Rant incoming...
What a load of b****cks.
"It has been postulated that because cyclists breathe more deeply during the physical exertion of cycling, that they can inhale up to five times more particulates than either car users or those travelling on public transport.
On the other hand, it has also been suggested that passengers travelling in cars or buses are more at risk of being exposed to higher levels of air pollution than cyclists, as they are sitting in an environment of limited circulating ventilation.
Despite the contradictions, cyclists need to be informed of the potential risks. "
In other words you know absolutely nothing about this but are determined to put people off cycling anyway?
This is quite possibly the worst thing I have ever read and I have read stuff by Melanie Phillips and Liz Jones.
I often taste diesel in town and I hate it.
But at the end of the day, if pollution was something to worry about then you'd expect cyclists to suffer from worse health and/or a reduced life expectancy, but the opposite is true.
Am I really putting my health at risk as a fit individual with a BMI of 22.5 versus my former self, sitting in a car (breathing the exhaust in front) with a BMI of 30+ ?
Not convinced.
Pollution is something to worry about but to heap all the scaremongering onto cyclists? Our survey says UHH UHH.
It's not as if we, when we find ourselves immediately behind a FirstBus or similar blue-smoke-emitting pollutifier, deliberately stay right behind it and increase the depth of our breathing, trying especially hard to catch and entire lungful of the huge puff as it sets off uphill or changes gear. Unless that's something else RLJers do to increase the risky excitingness of cycling.
What Dave and Min said.
Sounds like a good story for Ben Goldacre to cover.
The diesel emisions by busses in the city is needless. All busses that are local to Edinburgh or don't require to travel outside the city should be electric or LPG - emissions neutral. In addition, the exhaust on busses and lorries should not be at or around shin level. Given that most of the emissions travel upwards, should they not be expelled from the top of the vehicles - like those big mack trucks in the USA. It would be interesting to know the research, if there is any, on particulate levels emitted from high up exhaust pipes versus the existing arrangement. Cycling behind busses in particular can be unpleasant and unhealthy. Walking past busses loading and unloading on somewhere like the bridges can be most unpleasant. Many times I have turned off and headed up St Leonards to avoid the acrid air.
"Also, don't get stuck behind a bus or find yourself travelling downwind of vehicle's exhaust fumes and when stopping at traffic lights or a major junction, move out in front of the stationary motor vehicles so you are not inhaling the plume of exhaust fumes..."
Yes. That's what most cyclists in London already do, but London ≠ Every Other City. On Princes St here you'd have to have handlebars as narrow as Dave's bike and the turning circle of a Brompton, or be a pedestrian, to be able to manoeuvre successfully past all the buses. And besides, most of our roads aren't lovely four lane strips of tarmac with lots of room.
In the early 1990s, breathing masks for cyclists were pretty popular in the catalogues and on the road. You'd see someone scooting past with their red and black patterned Respro mask, valves clicking in and out. It's been a long, long time since I last saw anyone using a mask here. Is it because, like purple anodising and garage machinists, they had their fifteen minutes of fame? Or has there been a step change in the number of vehicles on the roads? Or is it, in fact, that there's been a great improvement in the length and number of off-road cycle routes since then? But then, how does the air quality differ between the middle of Princes St, the Union Canal at Lochrin, the canal at Harrison Park, the WoL path down by the Gallery of Modern Art, and the WoL path out towards Currie and Balerno?
It's coz respro masks were god awful. Wet sweaty and gave you a face rash. I used one briefly in about '92 when I was a courier. Horrible things `I'll take my chances with the pollution.
I used to be a smoker, im really not that worries about air pollution.
I used to be a smoker,
Yes but did you smoke through a respro mask or while cycling fast?
Respro seem to be making a lot of reflective stuff these days. Maybe there's not so much money in the breathing mask business. I have their helmet band, it's pretty effective.
Anyway, our noses are pretty effective filters in themselves. Smokers would do themselves a favour if they smoked through their nostrils.
I did actually find a dusty respro mask hidden in the depths of velo eccosse (far left corner of the shop) and wondered how long it had been there.
Are cyclist at greater risk from air pollution? No. Does the Government know there is a problem? Yes. Are they doing anything about it? No...
Has anyone else noticed Lothian Buses smart new "ecolothian" paint jobs on the number 36 buses?
As they have branded the route "Get there Greener", I was wondering what that was all about, so I went to the Get there Greener webpage on Lothian's website.
Apparently, they are
...improving our existing fleet: as new technology comes in, Lothian Buses makes sure to take advantage of it. On Service 36, refurbished exhausts are being fitted to our buses to reduce their carbon emissions, making our bus fleet friendlier to the environment.
Interesting, thought I - why aren't more vehicles fitted with these "carbon reducing" exhaust systems. In fact, why aren't any vehicles fitted with such things, because as far as I know, they don't actually exist.
Fortunately, a bus spotter on Flickr has the answer. What the bus has is a catalytic converter in the exhaust to convert NOxes into water and nitrogen gas using ammonia - that's selective catalytic reduction treatment to you and I.
I for one am glad that Lothian is taking these steps to reduce its "carbon" emissions by treating the bus exhaust for NOx. A classic example of the PR department listening to the "boring technical jargon" that the man from the engineering department tells them and that "nobody will understand" and then turning it into something they think people will understand and just ending up with nonsense.
Look forward to what my enquiry email to their environmental department will reveal.
"Emissions" is at least as buzzwordy as "carbon" so it's weird that they went for the latter. At least our poor brains have been spared a simplified and incorrect explanation of 'good' and 'bad' forms of nitrogen which would only have ended in panic once the EEN discovered that since LRT fitted 'nitrogen-emitting' exhausts to the #36 the proportion of nitrogen in the atmosphere in Edinburgh has reached almost 80%.
don't forget all that nasty dihydrogen monoxide. Things are so bad it's got into our food, the water we drink and not just our bodies but our childrens bodies.
They're putting it our our water?? The fiends!
"They're putting it our our water??"
It's OK, it just dilutes it...
Interesting and helpful response from LB's environmental manager;
Thank you for your positive comments about our new 'Get There Greener' liveried buses. The confusion over the reduction in carbon emissions has indeed arisen from a slight misinterpretation between myself and the Marketing department. Our problem to date is that new buses arriving with the most up to date emission standard exhausts are suffering a heavy weight penalty as more equipment is added to remove air pollutants. The additional weight leads to an increase in fuel consumption and, as fuel consumption is proportional to carbon emissions, an increase in carbon. The SCRT exhaust systems allow us to obtain the current emissions standard from older buses whilst not incurring a significant fuel penalty. We therefore get current emissions standards but with (almost) the original fuel efficiency. Overall the SCRT buses are marginally better for carbon than our newest buses. It was this point which got slightly 'lost in translation' between the two departments and an appropriate correction has been made to the website.
I thanked him for his speedy and helpful response and urged him not to shy away from getting slightly technical and giving us the "facts" on the website.
Interesting conundrum about the newest busses being more inneficient than the older ones from the weight of all the exhaust cleaning equipment they are lugging around.
A shame that first buses old bangers cant be obliged to follow suit. I'd hate to think they're saving money by running old buses with blue exhausts that are actually more fuel efficient...
That was a helful response. It would be interesting to put the same query to someone in their marketing department to see what you got back!
Personally i prefer they emit a little more carbon and a little less blue smoke and particulates. Though i don't suppose their bean counters see it that way.
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