Texas A&M Transportation Institute, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
Texas A&M Transportation Institute, Austin, TX 78752, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 Jan 29;16(3):371. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16030371.
As bicycling on roadways can cause adverse health effects, there is an urgent need to understand how bicycle routes expose bicyclists to traffic emissions. Limited resources for monitoring reveal that bicycle travel patterns may constrain such understanding at the network level. This study examined the potential exposure of bicyclists to traffic-related air pollution in El Paso, Texas, using Strava Metro data that revealed bicycle patterns across the city networks. An initial spatial mapping analysis was conducted to explore the spatial patterns of bicycling and traffic pollutant emission, followed by exploratory descriptive statistics. A spatial bicycle model was then developed to explore factors influencing bicycling activity in El Paso. Analysis results indicated significant associations between greater bicycle volume and both higher levels of particulate matter (PM) emissions and more frequent bus services, implying adverse health concerns related to traffic-related air pollution. The results also indicated significant effects of various environmental characteristics (e.g., roadway, bicycle infrastructure, topography, and demographics) on bicycling. The findings encourage extending this study to provide guidance to bicyclists whose regular trips take place on heavily trafficked roads and during rush hours in this region and to evaluate the net health impacts of on-road bicycling for the general population.
由于在道路上骑自行车可能会对健康产生不利影响，因此迫切需要了解自行车道如何使骑自行车的人接触到交通排放物。监测资源有限，这表明自行车出行模式可能会限制在网络层面上的理解。本研究利用 Strava Metro 数据，该数据揭示了整个城市网络的自行车模式，探讨了德克萨斯州埃尔帕索市骑自行车者接触与交通相关的空气污染的潜在暴露情况。进行了初始的空间映射分析，以探索骑自行车和交通污染物排放的空间模式，然后进行了探索性描述性统计分析。然后开发了一个空间自行车模型，以探讨影响埃尔帕索市自行车活动的因素。分析结果表明，自行车流量与颗粒物（PM）排放量更高和公共汽车服务更频繁之间存在显著关联，这意味着与交通相关的空气污染有关的健康问题。结果还表明，各种环境特征（例如道路、自行车基础设施、地形和人口统计学）对骑自行车有重大影响。这些发现鼓励将这项研究扩展到为经常在交通繁忙的道路上和该地区的高峰时间进行定期旅行的骑自行车者提供指导，并评估一般人群在道路上骑自行车的净健康影响。
