London saw a surprising benefit to fining high-polluting cars: More active kids. Four in 10 London children stopped driving and started walking to school a year after the city's clean air zone went into effect. Grist Syris ValentineSep 17, 2024  Restricting the volume of high-emitting vehicles roaming city streets carries many benefits, from clearing the air to quieting the urban din and beyond. Recognition of this simple fact has led to the proliferation of clean air zones, designated regions within a city where vehicles must meet strict pollution standards or pay a fee to operate within it. At last count, over 300 such areas had been established across Europe. In London, which boasts the largest ultra-low emissions zone in the world, a study has found a secondary benefit: Kids started walking and biking to school more.   Though research focused on understanding how lightening a city’s pollution load shaped the way young lungs develop, participants completed questionnaires alongside their annual health assessments. The responses allowed researchers to glean insights into their subjects’ activity levels, mental health, and other ancillary outcomes.
In the first of many papers expected from the study, the researchers found that, a year after the ultra-low emissions zone took effect, 2 out of every 5 London students in the study had switched from “passive” to “active” ways of getting to school. So instead of being chauffeured to school by their parents, the students started walking, biking, scootering, or taking public transit. On the other hand, in Luton, which acted as a control group, 1 in 5 made the same switch to modes that got them up and active, but an equal proportion switched to passive travel. But in London’s ultra-low emissions zone, shifting to driving was rare.The implications of getting kids active, even if it’s just for their pre-class commute, are intuitive but important.  Despite the benefits that stem from emissions-control zones like this, the legal environment in the United States has erected immense obstacles to replicating something like London’s ultra-low emissions zone. The closest anyone’s come was a voluntary and short-lived zero emissions delivery zone pilot in Santa Monica, California. And then there was New York City’s ill-fated congestion pricing zone, which Governor Kathy Hochul axed before it had a chance to woo the opposition......read on     https://grist.org/cities/london-fining-polluting-cars-more-active-kids/  And there's more.....  Critics of congestion pricing often end up supporting it. Here’s why.