L.A.'s Carmageddon improved air quality by 75%.

[Jorn]

Not only was the air quality much better but there was also a very pleasant calm over the city this weekend. Last year during Carmageddon One I stayed the weekend in Venice and it was like being in a small village far away from all the big city buzz.

From the Atlantic.

"Air quality near the normally busy highway improved by 83 percent that day last July, relative to comparable weekends. Elsewhere in West Los Angeles, the improvement was equally dramatic. Air quality improved by 75 percent on that side of the city and in Santa Monica, and by 25 percent throughout the entire region, as a measure of the drop in ultrafine particulate matter associated with tailpipe emissions.

"We saw what we expected: you take motor vehicles away, the air gets really, really clean," Paulson says, "which tells us that most of the pollution is from motor vehicles from one type or another in this area."

"We saw what we expected: you take motor vehicles away, the air gets really, really clean," Paulson says, "which tells us that most of the pollution is from motor vehicles from one type or another in this area.

There's little heavy industry around this stretch of the 405 Freeway; to the extent that this part of the city feels soaked in smog when you step outside for a breath of fresh air – that’s cars. Almost all cars."

[t walgamuth]

Cool!

About thirty years ago there was a cartoon in Road and track showing a person in a city with a lot of air pollutin who had a gas mask type device that was attached directly to the exhaust of his car because the exhaust was so much cleaner than the city's air.

I believe I read that there are some cars who have such a clean exhaust it actually might be cleaner than ambient air in some cities.

Obviously if that is true we are on the right track.

[Jim B.]

Originally Posted by t walgamuth

Cool!

About thirty years ago there was a cartoon in Road and track showing a person in a city with a lot of air pollutin who had a gas mask type device that was attached directly to the exhaust of his car because the exhaust was so much cleaner than the city's air.

I believe I read that there are some cars who have such a clean exhaust it actually might be cleaner than ambient air in some cities.

Obviously if that is true we are on the right track.

Yes you did; it was an ad for the SAAB that said the emissions coming out of the new SAABs tailpipe was actually cleaner than air.


But I tried over and over to picture myself inside an empty locked bedroom filled with Saab exhaust instead of air. And, I JUST COULD NOT DO THIS.

[MTUpower]

Emily Badger - the writer- appears and writes as a biased source. If you read the other works of her you'll find the common theme of "man and his effect on the planet is evil". If you have a strong view then the outcome a investigation usually supports your presupposed view because that is what you are looking for. More enviro-wacko-wingnut; kalifornia style. Nothing is as bad as you fear or as good as you hope.

edit/note- I'm not saying she is inaccurate in this article- but instead to be justly suspect before taking her word as gospel.

[Air&Road]

In 1979 I was on temporary duty and spent a month at the Buena Park Hotel next to Knot's Berry Farm amusement park near Fullerton. This was Springtime as I recall.

I was on the top floor facing the amusement park and every morning I would get up and open the drapes to a view of the park while I was milling around getting ready for work. I could always see the park with no problem and could see a few miles beyond.

After being there a month or so, the last morning I got up, I opened the drapes and there were MOUNTAINS in the distance. A Santa Anna storm had come through and blown all that crap out for a short time. A MONTH before knowing there were hills over there! Amazing.

[Jorn]

The first place I moved in too in Los Angeles was close to the 405 freeway near Culver city. Every month I had to clean the black soot that pilled up by the open kitchen window facing the freeway.

[cullennewsom]

Originally Posted by MTUpower

Emily Badger - the writer- appears and writes as a biased source. If you read the other works of her you'll find the common theme of "man and his effect on the planet is evil". If you have a strong view then the outcome a investigation usually supports your presupposed view because that is what you are looking for. More enviro-wacko-wingnut; kalifornia style. Nothing is as bad as you fear or as good as you hope.

edit/note- I'm not saying she is inaccurate in this article- but instead to be justly suspect before taking her word as gospel.

MTU, I expect that most writers at the Atlantic look about the same to you. It's unfortunate that the writer did not include the source, but she did make use of quotes, which I understood to mean that she was reporting on someone else's work, not, "I'm a liberal journalist pretending to do science." Anyhow, looking in the comments after the article, she posted the source material. 'Carmaheaven': Closure of 405 in 2011 improved air quality up to 83 percent / UCLA Newsroom A press release, apparently the actual paper is pending publication. Given that the supposed subject matter is so straightforward, it would be pretty brazen to issue a press release that didn't match the paper's content, which it appears is only the reporting that measurements taken during a rare occasion that cars are not present on the 405, when compared to background measurements appear to support the notion that cars give off lots of pollution, and on days that they are not present, the pollution goes away. This is not a revolutionary idea.

Originally Posted by Air&Road

In 1979 I was on temporary duty and spent a month at the Buena Park Hotel next to Knot's Berry Farm amusement park near Fullerton. This was Springtime as I recall.

I was on the top floor facing the amusement park and every morning I would get up and open the drapes to a view of the park while I was milling around getting ready for work. I could always see the park with no problem and could see a few miles beyond.

After being there a month or so, the last morning I got up, I opened the drapes and there were MOUNTAINS in the distance. A Santa Anna storm had come through and blown all that crap out for a short time. A MONTH before knowing there were hills over there! Amazing.

Larry, it is PLAINLY OBVIOUS that you are a LIBERAL operative in cahoots with those GLOBAL WARMING FANATICS and AL GORE. There is NO WAY that a tiny little old bit of pollution can CAUSE A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE. Beside everybody knows that SANTA ANNA died at the ALAMO. Just kidding, I had the same experience in Beijing in 2008, it's a funny feeling to learn that you've been living next to mountains for some time and then one day see them out the window.

[Palangi]

About 20 years ago, a friend of mine on Christmas Island, Kiribati (Central Pacific, about 1200 miles south of Honolulu / 3300 miles from SoCal ) was involved in collecting daily air quality samples for Scripps Institute in San Diego. They would ship him vacuum flasks ( about 2 cubic ft.) He would go each day to whatever point on the island had an offshore breeze, open up the valve, and let the flask suck in the air. He was shown briefly doing this on an episode of Nova. According to him, Scripps could actually follow the weekly cycle of 5 days high and 2 days low by measuring the amount of pollutants in the air samples. Program came to a halt when the weekly airline flight was discontinued for a year or so.

[pj67coll]

Originally Posted by Air&Road

After being there a month or so, the last morning I got up, I opened the drapes and there were MOUNTAINS in the distance. A Santa Anna storm had come through and blown all that crap out for a short time. A MONTH before knowing there were hills over there! Amazing.

Similar to my first experience of LA. Back in spring of 93 I was staying with a friend who was studying at Caltech. Their house was near the campus in Pasadena. I'd been there for a week when I walked outside one morning and saw a whole mountain range had appeared seemingly overnight at the end of the street! It was the San Gabriels and they had been utterly invisible for the week prior to a wind coming thru and blowing all that crud away. It was staggering. A whole 10000 foot mountain range just a few miles away that was invisible for a week. And then voila! seemed like you could reach out and touch them.

- Peter.

[Jorn]

Originally Posted by pj67coll

Similar to my first experience of LA. Back in spring of 93 I was staying with a friend who was studying at Caltech. Their house was near the campus in Pasadena. I'd been there for a week when I walked outside one morning and saw a whole mountain range had appeared seemingly overnight at the end of the street! It was the San Gabriels and they had been utterly invisible for the week prior to a wind coming thru and blowing all that crud away. It was staggering. A whole 10000 foot mountain range just a few miles away that was invisible for a week. And then voila! seemed like you could reach out and touch them.

- Peter.

Luckily, those days are over.

[Benz Fan]

Originally Posted by Jorn

Luckily, those days are over.

The range is now permanently invisible?

[pj67coll]

Originally Posted by Benz Fan

The range is now permanently invisible?

Hehe. I think he means they are now permanently visible. And I checked on Google maps the distance between the house we stayed in and the San Gabriels and it literally was no more than four miles. Incredible that pollution could be that thick.

- Peter.

[suginami]

Originally Posted by Benz Fan

The range is now permanently invisible?

It means that while our air quality still has room for improvement, it has improved a lot since the 70's.

[Jorn]

Originally Posted by Benz Fan

The range is now permanently invisible?

Most days I can see Mt Baldy. I still remember the smell the first time I landed at LAX 23 years ago, loved it at the time, I didn't know that lovely rubber gasoline smell was a silent killer.

[anthonyb]

I remember being in Shanghai in 2001, you could see the haze in the air by just looking at the buildings across the street.