Home » Health (Page 4)
Category Archives: Health
Extreme turbulence during air travel
Transport-related news last week included a report about a Singapore Airlines B777 jet flying to London from Singapore that had to make an emergency landing in Bangkok due to extreme turbulence experienced. Many people were seriously injured when the plane suddenly ascended (“tilted up” as some news reports state) and then abruptly descended, resulting in people being tossed up and hitting the compartments above their seats. Obviously, these passengers were not wearing their seatbelts at the time. Otherwise, they would have been restrained to their seats. It is likely that the turbulence was not anticipated by the pilot as they usually advise passengers to put on their seat belts if turbulence was expected at any time during a flight.
The incident raises concerns about extreme and sudden turbulence occurring during flights. I guess this may happen anytime and aircraft instruments may not be able to tell the crew about an impending incident like this. Will such an incident have a significant impact on air travel? Perhaps not if these incidents remain rare. There should be records and monitoring of factors or elements leading to such incidents in order to establish the likelihood of these happening. Incident records will also show if there is an increasing frequency as well as the number of people killed and injured. Such information would be vital as more people use aviation for travel and there are more aircraft activity around the world.
As a precaution, it is good practice not to remove your seatbelt while seated in flight. If it’s tight, then loosen it. At least you have some restraint in case of incidents where the aircraft encounters sudden turbulence.
–
Another roadblock for active transport?
The Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) recently released what they claim to be their counts of bicycle traffic along major roads in Metro Manila from 2020 to 2023.
These are supposed to be official data as it is issued by the government agency in-charge of traffic management for Metro Manila roads (aside from its other functions and roles). What are not stated, and are actually very important details, are the locations of the counts and when the counts were conducted. The Traffic Engineering Center (TEC) that was under the DPWH and currently with the MMDA used to publish traffic volume maps for major roads in Metro Manila. So along EDSA, for example, the volume per section are shown on the map. The same for other major roads like Commonwealth, Quezon Avenue and SLEX. The thicker lines mean higher volumes along those sections, and vice versa. However, they did not consciously count bicycles (only motor vehicles) and perhaps MMDA only started counting during the pandemic (i.e., 2020). So there is no one value to represent a road. And counts vary over time of day, day of the week and even throughout the year (i.e., monthly variations).
There were many reactions to the MMDA’s posting of the data and most were critical and even derided the agency for what to them appeared to be inaccurate data. The problem is that it seems there are no other counts that can validate and perhaps refute the MMDA data. Previous bike counts were not conducted according to how the MMDA and DPWH count vehicles. That is, counts are typically done over a 14 or 16-hour period and ideally on several days in a year. Expansion and conversion factors are applied based on established stations along major roads that are supposed to have more frequent if not continuous counts. This methodology is how Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) is computed. Call it car-centric if you like but the methodology is very much applicable to bicycles as well. Peak hour counts for bikes are not enough and the peak hour factor for motor vehicles does not apply to bicycles (if this is to be used to expand/convert peak volumes to daily values). In fact, if you go into the math, there should be a peak hour factor for each type of vehicle considering each vehicle’s volume will vary differently over time. So yes, the solution here is to conduct bicycle counts according to how MMDA or DPWH counts vehicles and these should be done along several stations along major roads (e.g., those in the table above) to validate the MMDA counts.
More on this topic in the next post!
–
Article share: on making more affordable neighborhoods
I’ve been commenting about how transportation cannot be isolated and the need to relate it to other factors such as housing or home location choice. The latter though is also affected by other factors as well that affect the affordability of homes near the city centers or CBDs where workplaces and schools are located. The result of course is sprawl or the encouragement of sprawl. Private companies take advantage of this or contribute to this ‘encouragement’ by developing land farther away from the center. Thus, for Metro Manila’s case, many people reside in the peripheral provinces of Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna and Cavite. There are even those who choose to reside in Pampanga, Bataan and Batangas.
Kayatekin, C.S. and Sanmiguel, L.U. (April 16, 2024) ” ‘Urban form’ and the housing crisis: can streets and buildings make a neighborhood more affordable?” The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/urban-form-and-the-housing-crisis-can-streets-and-buildings-make-a-neighbourhood-more-affordable-224108 [Last accessed: 4/23/2024]
Quoting from the article:
“Our main finding was that the bottom-up districts we looked at had, overall, more small-scale apartments. The reason is simple: they had more small-scale buildings, built on small-scale plots. Once divided into apartments, this produces small apartments – homes in the bottom-up areas were 10% to 23.1% smaller than their top-down counterparts. This also made their real estate markets for small homes more competitive, and therefore more affordable.
However, our study showed there is nothing inherently magical about bottom-up areas. Their more intricate housing stock has little to do with the layout of streets and blocks, and a lot to do with how that land is built upon.
Plot size appears to be the deciding factor: the districts with greater numbers of small buildings built on small plots supported a denser and more affordable housing stock, regardless of whether they were top-down or bottom-up.
Older bottom-up areas seem to naturally lend themselves to having more small-scale plots. This is likely due to the incremental development of these areas, and the complex land ownership patterns that developed as a result. However, there is no reason why a top-down area cannot be designed to replicate these characteristics.”
–
Planning for Accessibility: Proximity is More Important than Mobility
Here is a quick share of another very informative article that discusses the importance of proximity and more dense development in order to reduce car dependence.
Source: Planning for Accessibility: Proximity is More Important than Mobility
Here are some excerpts from the article:
“This shows that proximity is much more important than mobility in providing accessibility: location, location, location. For the last century, our transportation planning practices have contradicted this principle. Transportation agencies built urban highways that destroyed and degraded accessible and multimodal neighborhoods to benefit suburban motorists. This was racist and classist, but the mechanism was the way that transportation planners valued increased traffic speeds, measured as travel time savings, while ignoring the loss of accessibility imposed on urban neighborhood residents.
Of course, many other factors affect people’s transportation and neighborhood preferences. Some people need their cars for work or after-work activities, and not everybody can bicycle or use transit even if it is available. However, surveys such as the National Association of Realtor’s National Community Preference Survey indicate that many people would prefer living in more compact, walkable neighborhoods than they currently do but cannot due to a lack of supply.”
Such articles are a must read for those who want to understand why government needs to invest in land at or near the CBDs, and develop that land so people will not need to reside far from their workplaces and schools. Truly, there are many other factors affecting transport preferences or mode choice. Housing is one such factor that we continue to treat separately from transport. It is very (prohibitively) expensive to buy or rent in the city particularly in or near the CBDs. The result is people opting to purchase or rent homes in the suburbs. It doesn’t help that developers are also actively promoting subdivisions there and therefore are contributing to sprawl that puts so much pressure on transportation systems.
–
On kamote riders
Much has been written and reported about the so-called ‘kamote’ riders. These are motorcyclists who have the propensity for risky behavior including reckless maneuvers on the road. Such often places them in harm’s way whether they are conscious about the actions or not. I see them everyday during my commutes including but not limited to those who counterflow, speed, race, zig-zag through moving traffic, and use the bicycle lanes or pedestrian sidewalks.
The not so obvious kamote rider positioning himself at the downspout of a concrete mixer.
Not all motorcycle riders are kamote. However, there is a significant number of them out there that put other road users in risky situations. They also contribute to a lot of damage to property as evidenced by a lot of vehicles, especially cars, that have the signature scratches, dinks and dents after being sideswiped or bumped by motorcycles. Such behavior can actually be corrected if the Land Transportation Office (LTO) would be stricter with licensing – requiring more in terms of rider training and certification as well as testing. Traffic law enforcement is also critical here because behavior change can only be done and effective if enforcers are firm. A friend made the observation that law enforcers themselves are the first to violate rules and regulations or bend them in their favor. That sends a wrong signal and would only encourage more ‘pasaway’ and ‘kamote’ riders.
Of course, there are also kamote drivers and cyclists. But those are the topics for future posts.
–
Article share: The Benefits of Trees
Here is a quick sharing of this article on the benefits of trees. I thought such articles are always timely and relevant especially if you frame this in the context of road or highway development as well as the complete streets concept that is currently being promoted to improve transport conditions including road safety.
Source: The Benefits of Trees
On urban noise
We open February with an article share. The article is about noise in urban areas. Not surprisingly, most noise comes from transportation and the solutions mentioned in the article not only addresses transportation noise but at the same time addresses other concerns about transportation, including safety.
Durand-Wood, E. (January 25, 2024) “Why Are Cities So Noisy? And Can We Do Anything About It?“ Strong Towns, https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2024/1/25/why-are-cities-so-noisy-and-can-we-do-anything-about-it [Last accessed: 2/2/2024]
To quote from the article:
“In 2011, the WHO set recommendations for daytime and nighttime environmental noise levels, and found the maximum safe noise level for daytime is 55db (somewhere between moderate rain and normal conversation) and at night, 40db (about the level of a quiet library). Beyond these levels, prolonged exposure to environmental noise has been shown to cause health problems, and not just hearing-related ones.”In 2011, the WHO set recommendations for daytime and nighttime environmental noise levels, and found the maximum safe noise level for daytime is 55db (somewhere between moderate rain and normal conversation) and at night, 40db (about the level of a quiet library). Beyond these levels, prolonged exposure to environmental noise has been shown to cause health problems, and not just hearing-related ones.
Until recently, most analysis related to urban noise has focused on noise as an annoyance or disruptor to humans. But with these new guidelines, there was an acknowledgement that too much environmental noise can actually have grave health consequences, noting that “at least one million healthy life years are lost every year from traffic-related noise in the western part of Europe.”
We now know that higher levels of environmental noise raise heart rate and blood pressure, cause harmful sleep interruptions, and are linked to cardiovascular disease, dementia, and cognitive impairment in children, among others. And as with environmental pollution, there are racial and socioeconomic disparities with noise pollution.
In a 2022 report, the United Nations identified urban noise pollution as a top environmental risk.”
Have you noticed how noisy it is in our cities? Many actually choose to live in the suburbs as the perception is its quieter especially during the night. The health risks due to noise are well-established as presented also in the article. However, there are ways to address this and reduce the noise, particularly the type attributed to transportation and traffic.
–
Happy New Year and Safer roads for 2024!
We conclude 2023 and begin 2024 with hopeful greetings for everyone especially for the coming year!
Last December 18, 2023, an event was held in Quezon City for the launch of the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2023 by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding for Child Road Traffic Injury Prevention (CRTIP) by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Advocates of road safety were gathered for the launch and the MOU signing including top officials of the Department of Transportation, which is the lead agency for the initiative.
Information and links to the WHO Road Safety Data app. The app is available on Google Play and the Apple App Store. You can also scan the QR code in the photo to get the app and install it on your gadget.
Representatives of the various agencies, offices and groups who signed the MOU for the National Coalition for Child Road Traffic Injury Prevention (NC-CRTIP).
Participants to the MOU signing and Philippine launch of the WHO’s Global Status Report on Road Safety 2023
I learned there that the DOTr intends to reconstitute an inter agency committee on road safety. This is a throwback to the Road Safety Steering Committee and Technical Working Group during the time of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and then DOTC Secretary Leandro Mendoza that was co-chaired by the DOTC and DPWH. People were able to discuss road safety along various contexts and formulate programs and projects involving many if not most of the agencies and organizations at the time. These same agencies and organizations plus many others are still actively campaigning for safer roads or safer streets. Unfortunately, many are not talking with each other and there are those who seem to assume that there were no effort before to make transportation safer (sorry not sorry for pointing that out quite bluntly here). I am hopeful that this committee will be reconstituted this 2024 and that will lead to safer roads for everyone.
–
On reimagining our streets
We start the last month of the year by sharing this article on complete streets:
Robertson, D. (November 15, 2023) “Safe streets are global—and it’s time for the U.S. to catch up,” Smart Growth America, https://smartgrowthamerica.org/safe-streets-are-global-and-its-time-for-the-u-s-to-catch-up/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=03b04320-4eeb-4bf5-9b12-71ec2a960421 [Last accessed: 12/1/2023]
To quote from the article:
“The examples mentioned here are exemplary cases, but demonstrate that the future of mobility need not follow the same dangerous status quo. They prove that with a combination of public and political will to the commitment of the prioritization of people over cars, we can produce the results we care all about.”
While the article is on complete streets, there is a very quotable section that referred to the situation in Japan:
“Anyone who wants to register a car in Japan today must prove that they have a private place to park it. This shifts the economic burden of providing parking from the public to drivers, and also ensures that supply of parking will not grossly outpace demand.”
There are many opportunities for the complete streets concept to be applied in the Philippines. A few have already been implemented but there should be more especially in light of the gains from the development of bike lanes networks in many LGUs that started during the COVID-19 pandemic. As for parking, perhaps the Japanese example should be adopted and implemented to curb car-dependence.
–
On walking and running for health
Here is a quick share of an article on walking and running from the New York Times:
Caught (up) in traffic 