Linking L.A.: Living by freeway smog causes health problems for mother, son

Living adjacent to the smoggy I-5 Freeway has been harmful to one Los Angeles woman and her son.

L.A. Weekly has a fascinating story about how a mother, Fay Green, and her young son moved into a new housing project in Lincoln Heights. The building looks great on the outside, but living next to the din of the freeway is causing health concerns. L.A. Weekly reports:

The bedroom of her young son, who has a sinus problem, requires extra attention so he can breathe; Green herself suffers from asthma. She says these sicknesses started before she moved to Avenue 26, erected less than 100 feet from one of the world's busiest, and filthiest, freeways, used by 285,000 vehicles per day. But when the weather is hot, or other conditions create smog, Green notices that many of her kids start to cough. She won't feel well, either.

Read the full story here.

Here are some other interesting L.A. items on the Web:

A new WeHo park: West Hollywood may set up a temporary park in the 1300 block of N. Laurel Avenue, on the site of a future senior housing complex. Curbed LA reports:

Financing issues, rising costs, and the loss of a $4.2 million HUD grant have made a groundbreaking date for the facility far from clear. On Monday, the City Council voted to consider turning over the site -- at least temporarily --- to the public.

Pasadena could ban smoking: Next month, Pasadena will consider a citywide, complete ban on smoking. The Pasadena Star-News reports:

Options the city will consider at the next meeting, along with the outright city ban and single-family home ban, will include a ban on smoking in apartments, requiring a certain percentage of smoke-free units, or requiring owners to have smoking and non-smoking units in different parts of the building.

Preserving an Inglewood landmark: Residents are starting an effort to preserve and restore the Inglewood Fox Theater. The Daily Breeze reports:

Supporters hope to preserve and restore the Fox as a multipurpose entertainment and special events venue. … The theater, at 115 N. Market St., has been vacant for decades but its original Baroque-Deco-Moderne interior is intact and the building is in good condition, preservationists say.

-- Anthony Pesce

Have some news for Linking L.A.? Contact Times reporter Anthony Pesce.

Comments

[Tornadoes28]

Excuse me but it is NOT a fascinating story. It is a flawed and biased story.

What do they suggest? There are some studies that state even up to within a mile of the freeway is unhealthy. Should the city not allow any new housing within one mile of all freeways? And what happens when a study comes out about the negative health affects of living near a busy street or intersection. Does the LA Weekly really believe that once you pass a 500 foot buffer than you will be OK? Silly.

LA Weekly gives the impression that they are fighting for the people and exposing all the bad stuff but this is a good example of the LA Weekly not really providing anything useful at all.

Martha Arguello and her Physician group apparently don't get it either. Amazing they seem to think it's as simple as banning new housing within 500 feet. The magical 500 foot barrier. Doing this would only make urban sprawl even worse. Forgetting the health and environmental affects of urban sprawl is pretty ignorant.

[James]

I don't understand: I thought ALL respiratory ailments were caused by second-hand cigarette smoke. You mean to tell me that even if I'm not around second-hand cigarette smoke I can still get a respiratory ailment?

[dfb]

Kudos to Pasadena for even considering this step. Smoking (i.e. cigarette smoke) is a nuisance and should be treated as such. Smoking should be barred from all public places and cities and private citizens empowered to actually do something to stop others from creating a nuisance by smoking. Over 88% of Californians do NOT smoke. The remaining 12% should not hold the rest of us hostage to their annoying habits under the guise of a right. Their right ends at the rest of our noses. :-)

[M]

I'm sorry that Tornadoes28 is so short sighted. The problem is cars. Electric or not, they divide, chop up and essentially destroy any sort of possibly for unity, connection and enjoying this weather that supposedly so many people move to Los Angeles.

As someone that lived closer than 500 feet from a freeway, solely so that I can access the Red Line, I was never warned when signing an apartment lease about the risks of living near the freeway. I'm not contributing to the air problems because I don't even own a car. Instead I'm riding the train, walking or biking, but why does this require living near a freeway? On what planet does that even make a little bit of sense?

A very large percentage of the land in Los Angeles is almost solely dedicated to cars in the form of parking lots, streets (let's be honest, bicyclists are not welcomed on the streets here), driveways, parking garages, gas stations, car repair places and car lots. Los Angeles is one of the absolutely most dense cities in the United States. With that information, if you were to ban cars, keep them confined to the freeways (and ONLY put things like parking garages next to the freeways) and put a magnificent and complete public transportation system in place with frequent services and essentially a minimal number of vehicles on the road (allow delivery vehicles only, etc.), you can reclaim much of the space dedicated to cars for other purposes. You can create an environment friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists. As someone that does not own a car, most of what makes makes getting out of your car unpleasant are the rest of the people in cars that won't try something different.

I don't think the point of the LA Weekly article to provide THE solution. The point of the article was to open people's eyes at the dangers of our poor city planning and decisions and that the people that are supposed to be representing people living in "celebrated" transit oriented developments adjacent to the freeways are NOT doing their job. Our "green" mayor is telling us he is green but not showing it with actions.