Photo credit: Elina Sazonova
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
I recently wrote about Paris closing more than 500 streets to vehicular traffic in order to reduce transportation noise. The Washington Post just reported that a beneficial side effect of street closures is reduced air pollution, as measured by nitrogen dioxide concentrations and particulate matter. As I have often said, noise pollution is the unwanted auditory accompaniment of the internal combustion engine. The reverse is true. Air pollution is the unwanted atmospheric accompaniment to transportation noise, which includes not only exhaust or engine noise for vehicles, trains and aircraft, but also tire noise and the noise made by railroad car wheels on steel rails, as well as horns for trains and vehicles.
I often close my blog posts with the sentiment that a quieter world will be a better and healthier world for all. This new research from Paris shows that’s true for respiratory health as well as auditory health.
