According to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, from June 2003 to March 2004, we experienced 40 days when elderly and very young residents of our valley were advised not to go outside and active residents were told not to exercise outdoors. In the American Lung Association's State of the Air: 2004 (April 29, 2004) report, Salt Lake County is given a grade of "F" for high ozone days and an "F" for particle pollution during a 24-hour period. Davis County got a "D" for high ozone days and an "F" for particle pollution in a 24-hour period.
One has only to look outside downtown on most days this winter to see how dirty and dangerous our air is.
The importance of each of us doing our share to clean up the air becomes increasingly evident as we learn more about the health consequences of poor air quality.
As reported in 2002 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, air pollution found in large and midsize U.S. cities increases the risk of premature death from lung cancer and heart disease. Air pollution also increases the incidence of asthma attacks and other respiratory diseases.
More than 34,300 children and 51,000 adults in Salt Lake County suffer from asthma. Experiencing an asthma attack or watching someone having an asthma attack is truly terrifying. Perhaps if we think of children struggling for breath, we will gain the motivation to improve the quality of our air.
Because the major source of air pollution along the Wasatch Front comes from vehicles, I oppose spending massive amounts of money for additional highways - in particular the Legacy Highway - before we invest in additions to our mass transit system.
The future economic and physical health of the Wasatch Front depends on all of us relying less on traditional single-occupancy vehicles and more on mass transit (light-rail, commuter rail and buses), alternative-fuel vehicles, walking and biking. Living closer to where we each work would also help solve our air quality problems.
As an elected official charged with protecting the public and economic health of Salt Lake City, I have a responsibility to work to prevent the endangerment of our health. For this reason, my recent State of the City speech focused on the damage to our air quality - and hence long-term economic development - that will be caused by the Legacy Highway.
Because the Legacy Highway would be located in Davis County, I discussed the use of single-occupancy vehicles by commuters in that area and how we all need to work to reduce our reliance on automobiles. All of us can do our share to improve the quality of our air, but first we need to be clear that the major problem is caused by people driving petroleum-fueled cars more and more miles every year.
Building highways is expensive. For example, the 14-mile section of the Legacy Highway currently planned is estimated to cost over $750 million, or $53 million per mile. Compare this to the cost of building 40 miles of commuter rail from Salt Lake City to Weber County at an estimated $400 million, or $10 million per mile, and the $26 million-per-mile cost of our 19-mile light-rail system.
Both transit options are less expensive up front and they help people use their automobiles less, thus contributing to cleaner air. If this isn't enough to convince us that we should pursue a "transit-first" approach to solving our transportation problems, consider the significant costs of maintaining a car.
According to the American Automobile Association in its yearly study that calculates the cost of owning and operating a vehicle for 10,000 miles of annual driving and five years of ownership before trading it in, motorists paid an average of 68.9 cents a mile, or $6,890 a year, for a 2004 model car. Driving a car is expensive. Wouldn't it be terrific to save some or all of that $6,800-plus spent yearly on a car by using mass transit, walking or riding a bicycle?
My message is simple: We can clean up our air, improve the public health, save open spaces, increase the amount of time commuters spend in social and leisure activities, and save significant amounts of money per month for households along the Wasatch Front by providing more mass-transit options and decreasing dependence on the automobile.
---
Rocky Anderson is mayor of Salt Lake City.
