At the easternmost edge of Lake Erie, where the lake meets the Niagara River, the Peace Bridge connects the United States and Canada. The two-thirds-of-a-mile-long bridge is one of the busiest border crossings between the two countries, connecting Canada’s Fort Erie with Buffalo, New York. Every day, an average of more than 15,000 vehicles, about 3,400 of which are trucks, drive over its steel girders.
In the shadow of the bridge sits a small neighborhood called the West Side, where the asthma rate is more than four times the national average, and residents report a host of other health issues. Advocates say the thousands of trucks driving overhead spew harmful diesel emissions and other particulates into their community. The pollutants hover in the air, are absorbed into buildings and houses, and find their way into the lungs of neighborhood residents, who are primarily people of color. “It’s constant asthma problems on the West Side,” says Sharon Tell, a local resident.
In the shadow of the bridge sits a small neighborhood called the West Side, where the asthma rate is more than four times the national average, and residents report a host of other health issues. Advocates say the thousands of trucks driving overhead spew harmful diesel emissions and other particulates into their community. The pollutants hover in the air, are absorbed into buildings and houses, and find their way into the lungs of neighborhood residents, who are primarily people of color. “It’s constant asthma problems on the West Side,” says Sharon Tell, a local resident.
Far from addressing the community’s concerns, plans are now afoot to expand the Peace Bridge. A proposed expansion of the bridge’s on- and off-ramps will further encroach into the neighborhood’s streets. Residents say their concerns about the constant truck traffic and its deleterious health consequences are being consistently ignored. “We have to move past the point where your zip code determines the quality of your life,” says Virginia Golden, a Buffalo resident and activist.
Thoughtful article continues here.
The relationship between transportation and social mobility is stronger than that between mobility and several other factors, like crime, elementary-school test scores or the percentage of two-parent families in a community, said Nathaniel Hendren, a Harvard economist and one of the researchers on the study.
Read the rest here.
Buses reach a relatively narrow geography around the heart of Greenville — 227 square miles of the county’s 785-square-mile footprint. Stops fall miles short of where industrial and manufacturing jobs are concentrated. And buses stop running in the early evening on weekdays, earlier on Saturdays and not at all on Sundays.
Between 30 and 50 percent of United Ministries’ employment readiness program participants rely on the bus to get to work, said program manager Amanda Warren.
“It affects what shifts of work people can look for, apply for, accept. It affects what companies they can apply for,” she said.
Davison said her search for a new job is frustrated by her reliance on the bus.
“I need to go to work, and I need to be able to work late if I have to,” she said. “I’m just stuck.”
Read the rest here.
3 articles that paint specifics regarding transportation needs in America, and the facts they present, based upon actual studies, fail to impress that grumpy curmudgeon of conservatism, Rush Limbaugh, who in a brief commentary this morning, gave his reason for poverty in America: Lib'ruls. He thinks that since so many cities with poor folks in 'em have lib'rul gummits, that is proof that lib'rulism causes poverty. That's the type of simplistic "thinking" that Limbaugh's followers love to adopt as their own. Well, my thinking is that these cities' residents vote lib'rul because of the problems they're facing. Right wing gummits simply cannot get past their policymaking that benefits wealthy folks, who do very little actual "trickle downing" to the masses, and voters note that and vote lib'rul. Meanwhile, smaller rural areas, who tend to vote conservative, also have problems that aren't being addressed. Why those people don't vote lib'rul has recently been addressed elsewhere. I'll try to find that info and pass it on.
So, we see studies by experts that show how flaws in our transportation system work to keep poor folks poor, and we have bloviations by right wing "entertainers" downplaying actual facts. America, wake the hell up!
