National links: Noise pollution from traffic hurts children’s brains

Traffic noise pollution negatively impacts children’s brain development. Cities need to rethink their approach to retail land use regulations. Caltrans views highway expansion as being aligned with the state’s climate goals.

Traffic noise and children’s brains: Noise pollution has impacts on children’s health, particularly urban transportation noise which is the dominant source of noise pollution in both the United States and European Union. Studies show children’s cognitive function at important development stages can be impacted, particularly outside of places of learning. The best solution? Reducing vehicle traffic near schools. (Olivia Howitt | BBC Future)

Cities have overbuilt retail spaces: Even before the pandemic, retail vacancies were high, but they’ve continued increasing in part because of the convenience of online shopping, empty offices in downtowns, and landlords that sit on properties, waiting for perfect tenants. But Leah Brooks and Rachel Meltzer argue that there’s a more fundamental driver of high retail vacancies: the over-allocation of space for retail in municipal land use regulations. (Leah Brooks and Rachel Meltzer | Slate)

Highway expansion and climate change: The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) claims that expanding Interstate 80 near Sacramento and adding toll lanes will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by easing congestion. But highway projects are known to induce demand from drivers, which leads critics to question whether California’s highway department and its elected leaders are serious about the state’s long-term climate and modal shift goals. A lawsuit filed by environmental groups against the project will test California’s climate laws and their applicability to transportation policy. (This article may be behind a paywall). (Rachel Uranga | Los Angeles Times)

Colorado’s innovative rental benefit: Colorado has set aside 0.1% of the state’s income tax revenue for affordable housing programs across the state. The new law also enables an initiative that gives renters “equity” each month from the housing they live in built by the program. The equity paid to tenants comes from the interest payments on debt paid by developers who borrowed money from the state to build the residential units. (Roshan Abraham | Shelterforce)

Four-day work week to increase productivity and quality of life: A Barcelona Metropolis series on work shares the idea of moving to a four-day work week in hopes of increasing the amount of leisure time people have, which in turn could boost civic participation and reduce emissions from transportation. In Valencia, Spain, a combination of holidays and a local festival led to an entire month of four-day work weeks in April 2023. Researchers found nitrogen dioxide pollution in the city decreased by 58% during that period, attributed to reductions in driving commutes. (Joan Sanchis i Muñoz | Barcelona Metropolis)

Quote of the Week

“No, no, great job, you disintegrated our Death Star, the first-ever pedestrian-only planet. You drove a million miles just to ruin a perfectly lovely living space.”

Jack Stebbins in the satirical magazine McSweeney’s

This week on the Talking Headways podcast, we’re joined by Wes Marshall, Civil Engineering Professor at the University of Colorado at Denver to talk about his book Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies our Transportation System.