Smog advisory for Toronto and surrounding area

Don't push too hard out there for your ride home today. Your skin may enjoy this warm air, but your lungs will not.

The Ministry of the Environment has issued a Smog Advisory for Toronto and all surrounding regions, along with most of Ontario.

Tomorrow doesn't look like it will be any better.

It doesn't mean you can't ride, but you should definitely take it easy. Here are the official words from the Ministry:

During the smog episode, individuals may experience eye
irritation. Heavy outdoor exercise may cause respiratory
symptoms such as coughing or shortness of breath. People
with heart or lung disease including asthma may experience
a worsening of their condition.

The other advice I would give is try to take roads that are low traffic. This helps you avoid the combination of poor air quality and lots of local air pollution from exhaust.

Tags:

smog alert

Comments

Andrew

and so it begins

Tue, 05/08/2007 - 14:29

I was enjoying the clean spring weather!

joe

one day...

Tue, 05/08/2007 - 15:02

One day, I hope that smog advisories actually come with the advice to carpool to work today, take transit, walk or bike to work.

There's been a lot of noise about a possible downtown congestion charge... a good way to ease it in may be to charge single-occupant-vehicles travelling downtown on smog days.

darren

The request is already there

Tue, 05/08/2007 - 15:37

The smog advisory (at least the email one that they send out) does come with the following lines:

During a smog advisory, there are a number of actions that you can
take to help spare the air.

Travel tips - all year round:
- leave your car at home - walk, cycle, carpool or take public transit
- tele-conference instead of driving to meetings
- limit car trips by doing all your errands at once, and do
not let your engine idle
- keep your car well tuned, check your tire pressure and
drive at moderate speeds

I'd like to see it treated with a greater sense of urgency by the government at large, but technically the advisory does come with a polite request for people to not drive (year round).

joe

oh...

Tue, 05/08/2007 - 15:54

Oh, ... that's good to know.

It would be nice if cycling became an option for all Torontonians on smog days.

Using TCAT's "Clean Air Corridor" idea would rock... have certain streets reserved for only public transit and cyclists.

Ben

don't forget

Wed, 05/09/2007 - 10:43

don't forget pedestrians, rollerbladers, skateboarders, boogie boarders, scooterers, and so on and so forth.

Steeker

intresting that the amount of cars that were sitting with the motors on all around downtown today was huge every where I went on my ride before work you saw it.. by the way three cheers for the dump truck drivers near lake shore and queensquay and front street and downtown . all the ones I saw gave myself and other cyclists plenty of room,,,, =8^) (Steeker)