by arthur Weinreb,
October 27, 2004
Heart attacks are referred to as silent killers--often people have no symptoms of trouble or feel any pain before one strikes. But there is another reason why heart attacks can be considered to be silent; you probably won’t ever hear Toronto City Council discuss heart attacks being caused by the "killer commute".
a study that took place in southern Germany was reported in last week’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. after asking heart attack victims to describe what they were doing in the hours preceding their illness, one in 12 indicated that they had been stuck in traffic. The chance of suffering a heart attack was found to be 2.6 times as great if the person was stuck in traffic in a car. and there was a 3.1 greater risk of heart attack for people who had been sitting in buses that were snarled in traffic.
It was also determined that those that found themselves in heavy traffic while riding bicycles also a greater likelihood of suffering a heart attack. The German study did not conclude whether the subsequent heart attacks were occasioned by stress or pollution, but indicated that a link between heart disease and pollution has already been established.
Which brings us to Toronto City Council. It is no secret that the lefties on council would like nothing better than for everyone to get out of their cars and take public transport. For that reason, they will spend millions of dollars that they don’t have constructing special streetcar lanes on St. Clair avenue while doing absolutely nothing to alleviate the constant gridlock that plagues the city. Studies have shown that cars that are idling or travelling in stop and go traffic emit up to 20 times the amount of pollution that vehicles travelling the speed limit do. If Toronto City Council was really concerned about eliminating illness and death from pollution, they would immediately begin constructing more roads and expressways and vastly reduce the gridlock.
Toronto has a great subway system and many drivers who can take the subway from Point a to Point B, do so even though they could have driven. Taking the subway can be faster, especially at certain times of the day and eliminates being caught in traffic and paying for parking. Gridlock would disappear if subways could be constructed beneath every major street in the GTa. The cost is of course prohibitive and any further subway construction can only be undertaken by the city if they can do what they do best--beg for money from other levels of government. and even the federal government with their gazillion dollar surplus is not likely to provide any more funds to the city than they have already promised.
Despite wishful thinking, there is no way that people are going to give up their cars to use buses and streetcars. If Toronto City Council was really concerned about saving lives by cutting down the pollution they would abandon their dreams of a bicycle-riding utopia and improve the city’s road system. But they won’t. They don’t care about lives or the health of the city’s residents--they only care about their ideology. In the 1960s it was ban the bomb. Now it is ban the car.
The city has taken other steps that increase the amount of pollution in Toronto. By eliminating traffic lanes on major thoroughfares to construct bicycle lanes, more gridlock is caused and consequently more pollution. and the erection of speed bumps merely forces more traffic on to adjacent side streets that adds to the pollution. and those who choose to travel on streets with speed bumps emit more pollution by constantly speeding up and slowing down than they would if they were able to travel at a steady speed.
Striving for a city where everyone walks, cycles or takes public transit, makes Toronto City Council feel good about themselves. and in the end, that’s what it’s all about.
Don’t expect the city mothers to discuss the New England Journal of Medicine’s findings any time soon.