Subways and Urban Air Pollution, a new NBER paper by Nicolas Gendron-Carrier, Marco Gonzalez-Navarro, Stefano Polloni and Matthew A. Turner
Abstract
We investigate the relationship between the opening of a city’s subway network and its air quality. We find that particulate concentrations drop by 4% in a 10km radius disk surrounding a city center following a subway system opening. The effect is larger near the city center and persists over the longest time horizon that we can measure with our data, about eight years. We estimate that a new subway system provides an external mortality benefit of about $594m per year. Although available subway capital cost estimates are crude, the estimated external mortality effects represent a significant fraction of construction costs.
Read more here.
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation this week released a new report on the state's transportation system. Key take-away:
“What is clear is that the state lacks the requisite information to make profoundly difficult choices,” the report writes. “Questions such as which projects to fund and when, and how revenue sources should be allocated must be included as part of a long-term sustainable transportation finance plan to address our transportation needs. Unfortunately, the state has not yet adopted such a plan.”
MassLive.com has a good summary of the report.
Titled, "Ambitious City Projects Benefiting from Building Boom in Boston," https://shar.es/1F3Fbr, the article examines the good luck Boston's enjoying as a result of the building boom.
