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Electric trains in California cut 89% of toxic air pollution, study surprises | What made this transition unique was not just its scale, but its speed—and the immediate impact it had on air quality.
The study estimates that this reduction in black carbon will significantly lower cancer risk for people regularly exposed to the pollutants.
“The transition from diesel to electric trains occurred over just a few weeks, and yet we saw the same drop in black carbon concentrations in the station as California cities achieved from 30 years of clean air regulations,” said study senior author Joshua Apte. With the support of Caltrain, the research group placed sensors on the portable monitors to measure black carbon at various stations and on the train, which allowed them to assess pollution levels remotely. “If you think about this in the context of the whole of the U.S., where we have millions of people commuting by rail every day, that’s hundreds of cases of cancer that could be prevented each year,” said Samuel Cliff, a postdoctoral scholar at UC Berkeley.
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