For all of our Spanish-speaking readers, here is a short clip from a recent Mexico City television broadcast that gives a quick overview of some of the ways in which transport policy impacts public health. It describes a Mexico City NGO (and EMBARQ Network partner) that is working with the Mexican capital to improve both traffic conditions and the health of the citizenry.
Importantly, better transport systems can have community-wide effects that go beyond reducing air pollution and the incidence of traffic accidents; they can also help promote physical activity, providing another tool in the fight against chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.
In fact, as cities become increasingly congested, the myriad connections between traffic and public health have become more visible and more serious. Forward-thinking cities are beginning to realize that failing to address these links and thereby improve the quality of life in their cities will mean losing their competitive advantage in our increasingly globalized world.
Rhys Thom and I recently visited Mexico City where we met with two researchers at UNAM - Mexico’s National University - who are doing some fascinating research. Robyn Hudson, a charismatic professor, originally from Australia who has been living in Mexico City for quite some time, and her colleague Marco Guarneros, a fellow biomedical researcher, conducted a study comparing the ability of Mexico City’s residents to detect certain smells, with the ability of people living in a Tlaxcala, a neighboring town. Mexico City and Tlaxcala are similar in many respects - they share a similar culture and climate, situated high in the mountains of Mexico. But there is one crucial difference: Mexico City has much higher levels of air pollution.
When compared to their neighbors, people living in Mexico City need higher concentrations of a smell in order to identify it, a clear indication that their sense of smell is deteriorating. Read the rest of this entry »
CNN has started a series of articles and videos called Eco-Solutions about, well, eco-solutions to the world’s, err, eco-problems. This week’s video features Mayor Marcelo Ebrard of Mexico City and his efforts to transform this bustling capital city infamous for its traffic and smog into a healthy, more livable city. One of the things he has done, which this video highlights, is shut down Paseo de la Reforma, the city’s most important artery (think 5th Avenue in New York City), on Sunday’s to traffic so that children and families can enjoy the tree-lined avenues while strolling or riding their bikes. It’s a remarkable acheivement, given what Reforma looks like on weekdays:
The video also highlights Metrobus, a bus rapid transit line, which has significantly reduced the amount of travel time for its passengers and has cleaned the air in the city. Although the first line was built under the previous Mayor, Manuel Obradar, Marcelo Ebrard plans to extend it to 10 lines, and has already broken ground on two of these. Read the rest of this entry »
For the second year in a row, Mexico City has shown that being green can pay. Last week the city was awarded 200,000 Euros from the Spanish Carbon Fund for reducing carbon emissions as part of MetroBus, a bus rapid transit system that has reduced the number of polluting cars on the road.
Metrobús was Launched on June 19, 2005, and carries an average of 260,000 passengers a day. After more than two years in operation, it has carried more than 200 million passengers.
Residents of Mexico City have a much poorer sense of smell than their counterparts in the neighboring state of Tlaxcala due, in large part, to the poorer air quality in the Mexican capital. A study by Robyn Hudson, Aline Arriola, Margarita Martinez, and Hans Distel - researchers at UNAM, Mexico’s national university - suggests that the cause is exposure to abnormally high levels of ozone, a chemical compound known to damage the olfactory mucosa, the part of the nose that allows odors to be detected.
“For a megacommunity like Mexico City with more than 20 million inhabitants, this could constitute an important public health issue,” the researchers wrote. The study notes that chilangos, as residents of Mexico City affectionately refer to themselves, had more difficultly identifying trace smells of coffee and orange juice than people who live in neighboring Tlaxcala. What’s more, they had more trouble differentiating between two traditional Mexican drinks, horchata and atole.
Following the lead of Tokyo, where the subway has implemented female-only cars so that women can avoid the unwanted gaze or grope of overly-aggressive men, Mexico City has now introduced buses reserved exclusively for women. “One time a man stuck his hand up my skirt. They grab your butt … It’s gross,” Lourdes Zendejas, a female bus-commuter told Reuters. The new buses are emblazoned with pink “women only” signs on the exterior to warred off any confused man who wants to hitch ride. According to Carlos Cervantes, the spokesman for Mexico City’s bus system, sexual harassment has been an ongoing problem for female passengers who have suffered a variety of indignities merely for having an extra X chromosome while riding the bus. “We were constantly receiving complaints of women being leered at, kissed or followed,” he told Reuters.
It’s a nice step, especially for making public transportation accessible to everyone in a city where over 60 percent of the population travels by some type of bus.
For more information in Spanish, check out this article in El Tiempo.
In this great ad from MTV a donkey named Lolo takes the bus. The caption says “If Lolo can save the planet, why can’t you? Leave the car and take public transit. Let’s stop global warming.”
The car industry’s total annual advertising expenditures for the US alone were $16.3 billion in 2006 according to media research firm TNS Media Intelligence. In the face of this barrage of automobile advertising, it’s nice to see some time, money, and creativity invested in well done TV spots promoting public transportation. I’d love to see more of this. If anybody has any more examples of this kind of messaging please post them here or send them to me at rthom[at]wri[dot]org.
Way to go MTV! Check out the campaign at mtvswitch.org.
On Sunday, The Washington Post Magazine ran a cover story describing the transport woes Washington DC-area residents face as they move further and further outside the suburbs in order to escape the ever-expanding sprawl. Marc turner, who is profiled in the article, drives 200 miles round trip from his house in Charlottesville, Virginia to his office in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia everyday. That translates into four hours that he spends in the car, isolated from friends and family.
In an Earth Day special, MTV’s Pimp My Ride will feature the greening of a ‘65 Chevy Impala. During this very special episode of Pimp My Ride the crew will be replacing the original engine of the Impala with a 800 horsepower diesel engine that will run on biodiesel. While this should be entertaining, chances are it won’t touch EMBARQ’s Mexico City Diesel Retrofit videoRead the rest of this entry »
On Monday, Marcelo Ebrad, the Mayor of Mexico City, and other high-ranking officials cycled to work to show their support for a cleaner, more humanized city. Although it was a time of relatively low traffic – they made their trip at the beginning of Holy Week – the officials braved rain and cars to make a powerful point about reclaiming Mexico City’s streets. A flat city originally built on a former lake, Mexico City has the ideal landscape for cycling; bikers can pedal for miles without ever breaking a sweat. Yet since the 1950s, “Chilangos,” as inhabitants of the city are affectionately known, have put the bicycle aside in favor of motorized transport. Since then, the precipitous growth of the city, along with the number of automobiles, has left the streets clogged with cars and the air fouled by pollution. Read the rest of this entry »
Photo By EMBARQ-WRI.
Smog in the city. Photo by 
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