In cities, traffic is one of the major determinants for air quality. Studies have shown that proximity to roadways with heavy traffic has been linked with increased incidence and prevalence of a range of health effects such as adverse birth outcomes, dementia, asthma, and increased risk of bronchitis, wheezing, deficits in lung function growth and airway inflammation, especially among children. In Mexico, 103 urban areas have air quality monitoring, whilst more than 2,000 cities lack any information and only 29 have monitoring systems that are robust enough to estimate exposure. This poses serious limitations for environmental and health authorities when aiming at assessing current exposure levels to Traffic-Related Air Pollution (TRAP) with the purpose of designing and implementing policies to reduce the impacts of poor air quality in the population. This study proposes an approach to estimate the population potentially exposed to TRAP using Space Syntax’s accessibility index as the urban form variable. We selected the ten most accessible roads of the five Mexican cities to estimate the proportion of vulnerable population (residents, employees, schoolchildren, hospital patients) with the highest potential exposure to TRAP at a distance of 500 m. Our findings show a similar proportion of the population continually exposed to TRAP due to the proximity to roads with heavy traffic than studies using more complex models. Finally, this study presents alternatives to reduce current population exposure to traffic emissions in Mexican cities.
The achievement of any policy goal is bound to confront the problem of conflicting interests, from actors both within and without government. This chapter describes the process that was undertaken and the challenges faced by the Mexican Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in carrying out and obtaining approval of its cost-benefit analysis in support of regulations and standards. Given the lack of thoughtful discourse among the agencies and the lack of a central oversight office, there is a risk that different agencies may take advantage of the lack of federal cost-benefit analysis methodology standards to manipulate results. The authors contend that a strong federal regulatory framework for cost-benefit analysis is needed.
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