We are leaving our children a toxic transportation legacy

THE end of the school year is rapidly approaching and I find myself in a situation millions of Los Angeles parents face each June, how to find safe, healthy summer activities for my 6-year-old son during the summer. Turns out getting him out of school is the safest thing I can do.

Keeping my child at home will prevent him from breathing air full of hazardous, invisible air pollution radiating from the heavily trafficked Interstate 5 freeway, which sits just a stone's throw away from his school's front door. These next two months are especially valuable since the freeway is scheduled to move even closer to his school by the time he starts second grade this fall.

For decades, our region has sought extensive and expensive freeway projects as a way to solve mobility and congestion problems. This current expansion abutting my son's elementary school affects the area between the 134 and 118 freeways.

Not only are all 450 students at Glendale's Franklin Elementary at risk, but so are the other tens of thousands of students at 30 other school campuses between the 710 to the 14 freeways. These students will inhale dangerous levels of particulate matter pollution not only from increased vehicle traffic along the I-5, but from pollution emanating from chronically polluting construction equipment required
to undertake this multi-year project.

A study in the American Economic Review found that traffic density on the typical interstate roughly doubled from 1983 to 2003, independent of whether new miles had been added. When new pavement is added to existing roads, the AER study found that new commercial traffic and additional trips by current residents made up the bulk of that increase, followed by driving by new residents attracted by the development. In the case of the I-5 project, designed under the premise that new lanes will facilitate existing drivers, this is clearly a fallacy confirmed by anyone who has sat in L.A. traffic.

Across the region, thousands of children living or going to school near freeways subsidize freeway expansions with their health. This collateral damage is felt not only in the 17 percent childhood asthma rates in some L.A. neighborhoods, but in the thousands of annual premature deaths attributed to air pollution. Air quality studies document obvious health effects on children and adults who live close to busy roadways.

Instead of sinking billion of dollars in widening existing freeways, we should invest in healthier transportation alternatives. Changing the transportation infrastructure of Los Angeles will no doubt require more than a few of the daily 6 million cars to stay parked while their drivers take public transportation. But it can be done, and the city of L.A. is already investing in several initiatives through the 30/10 program to make those transit options available.

If CalTrans continues the freeway expansion projects, it must include strategies to protect our kids from the pollution. The safest solution is to relocate schools nearest the freeway. Other measures are higher soundwalls, planting a canopy of mature trees in and around the school, and installing air monitors, purifiers and filters in all the classrooms and buildings.

Before adding more pavement to our region, we should stop and reflect on the transportation legacy we're leaving to the next generation. In 10 years, when my son can legally drive, I don't want him held hostage by gridlock traffic. When the I-5 widening project is finished, my son will be in fourth grade and 9 years old. He will be 6 inches taller, three years older and have three years of toxic diesel pollution in his lungs.

This is not the legacy we should leave our children.