Coalition for Clean Air - Our Programs & Issues

Transportation Facts

General

Diesel

Diesel exhaust is known to cause cancer, asthma, and other respiratory diseases.
The health risk from diesel exposure is greatest for children and the elderly. The proximity of a child’s residence and school to major roads is linked to asthma occurrence.
Asthma limits children’s ability to participate in sports, and is the most common cause of children’s absence from school due to hospitalization.
The State of California decided that there is enough evidence to list the particulate matter in diesel exhaust as a toxic air contaminant.
Exhaust from heavy-duty diesel engines contains between 100-200 times more small particles than gasoline engine exhaust.
California’s Scientific Review Panel estimates that 16,000 Californians will develop lung cancer over a lifetime of diesel exhaust exposure.
Only 2 percent of the vehicles on California’s roads run on diesel. Yet they account for 31 percent of smog-forming nitrogen oxides, and for 79 percent of particular matter emissions from on-road vehicles.
Cleaner alternatives to diesel are available, such as liquefied natural gas, compressed natural gas, or propane. Electric or fuel-cell engines are being enhanced to provide future alternatives.

School Buses

Children breathe at a rate twice that of adults, and are thus more susceptible to the toxicity of airborne diesel particles, vapors and gases.
Some diesel exhaust causes pollutes the inside of buses when entering the cabin.
There is a continuing need to replace older, dirtier buses with cleaner, newer buses to reduce children’s exposure to vehicle related pollutants.
The average diesel school bus is 223.5 times more toxic than a new compressed natural gas (CNG) school bus.
Although a clean school bus powered with compressed natural gas costs about $30,000 more than a diesel bus, it is cheaper in maintenance.

Alternative Fuel Vehicles

Electric vehicles (EV’s) are the only true zero-emissions vehicles on the road.
The only emissions from electric vehicles are from upstream power plants providing electricity.
Upstream emissions for gasoline vehicles are more than 14 times higher than fo electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles run on electricity provided by on-board batteries, and can be recharged at any of the many recharging stations around the state.
As of March 2002, there were more than 4,000 electric vehicles on the road in the U.S., most of them in California.
Hybrid vehicles offer 2-3 times the energy efficiency of a comparable gasoline-only car, and have ranges of about 600 miles on a tank of gas.
The most widely available hybrid vehicles are the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius, which have retail prices of about $20,000. The Ford Escape Hybrid will be launched late summer 2004, at a retail price of around $27,000.
Comprehensive data of vehicles’ fuel economy and emissions is provided by the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Green Vehicle Guide”: http://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles.

Light Trucks and SUV’s

By federal law, light trucks and SUV’s do NOT have to meet the strict emission standards placed on passenger cars.
Light trucks and SUV’s now account to almost half of all auto sales in the United States.
Many Light Trucks and SUV’s run on diesel, which severely increases the danger of lung diseases.
In average, light trucks and SUV’s of the 2004 model year achieve only about 70 percent of the fuel economy of average cars.
With advanced technology, such as gasoline-electric hybrid motors, auto manufacturers could ensure that SUV’s and light trucks meet the same emission standards as cars.

Ports

The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the largest fixed source of air pollution in the South Coast Air Basin. Communities neighboring these ports suffer from some of the highest cancer risk due to air pollution in our region.
The number of cargo containers entering these ports is expected to as much as quadruple in the next 20 years.
A container ship that idles at dock emits about as much diesel pollution as a diesel truck traveling 70,000 miles – the approximate distance of three trips around our earth. These ships can produce more than 1 ton of smog-forming compounds during a 24 hour period at the dock.
Shoreside power allows ships to turnoff their dirty auxiliary engines – virtually eliminating pollution at the dock.
This technology has been used by the Navy for decades. The technology has also been proven successful for cruise ships and other harbor craft.
The first container terminal with dockside power capability opened in 2004 as a result of a settlement between the Port of Los Angeles, NRDC, the Coalition for Clean Air and local community groups. A container ship with dockside power capability has already docked twice and ran on electric power.

Airports

Los Angeles International Airport is the second largest industrial smog source in the Los Angeles Area.
Air pollution from airports is exempt from many rules that other industrial polluters must follow.
Air travel is expected to double within the next two decades. It is the fastest growing mode of travel in the United States.
One 747 arriving and departing from JFK airport in New York City produces as much smog as a car driven over 5,600 miles, and as much polluting nitrogen oxides as a car driven nearly 26,500 miles.
Airplanes can save a lot of fuel if they have the ability to move on ground with just one engine running.
The United States is one of only 3 countries opposing a worldwide standard that would reduce the impact of aircraft emissions in the atmosphere.