Incorporating Urban Travel Choices to Air Quality Policies: Lessons from New York City, Paris and São Paulo

The association between urban air quality, vehicular emissions and health outcomes has been long established by epidemiologists making it one of the current greatest environmental and global health issues. As cities... [ view full abstract ]

The association between urban air quality, vehicular emissions and health outcomes has been long established by epidemiologists making it one of the current greatest environmental and global health issues. As cities concentrate the world’s greatest share of exposed people, local policy makers face the challenge to cope with one of the major circumstances aggravating the effects of air pollution: traffic density and people’s exposure. Governments, at all levels, understand the importance of implementing public policies that aim to control its impacts. As the world´s attention shifts to climate change, urban air quality becomes an ally to mitigation and raises the question of looking at the efficiency of strategies developed in different cities, in particular to the ones that look at travel modes. Using the cases of New York City, São Paulo and Paris, this study highlights the different tendencies observed in these three cities, by linking the different mobility survey reports, government programs and policies implemented over the last fifteen years. Results suggest some tendencies and disparities in transportation choices. For instance, the more distance between people´s residence and their place of work, the more they tend to use privately owned vehicles, partly due to the lack of available public transportation near their homes. This is particularly true for middle-income population that constitutes the major car owners. There is a need to develop more integrated clean transportation strategies that reach a greater number of city inhabitants and that limit the use of privately owned vehicles for work travel purposes. To conclude, policy makers will gain in improving air quality by incorporating people´s travel choices and profile and by identifying where travel shifts are possible. Moreover, there will be a societal gain by promoting new transport initiatives that will reduce work related commute time as an environmental justice tool.