Sunday, September 12, 2010

Health impacts living near roads and railways

In the near future my family may be moving towns. In light of this I have been searching around the broad region for a place to live. In looking for our current home I was always aware of the proximity of high voltage transmission lines and wanted to live with some sort of setback from major roads due to concerns relating to the potential health impacts of these sorts of infrastructure.

In the region we will be moving to there is a significant amount of large volume, relatively high speed roads criss-crossing the region and also a railway line that carries freight and commuter trains bordering the hinterland region. In light of the significant amount of transportation infrastructure within the living areas of this region I now would like to know more about the health impacts of these transportation corridors.

It seems that there is some association with sleep disruption due to noise with railways and health impacts, particularly in regards to learning capabilities for small children. However, I don't know at what distance from the railway infrastructure this association diminishes. I also saw a paper about increased asthma and rail and rail intersection, but again don't know at what distance this decreases. I also don't know what type (voltage) of electricity lines are utilised on the rail lines in the area and thus the potential health impacts of these.

Need to research this some more but if anyone has any information on this matter I would appreciate hearing about it.
Pin It

No comments:

Post a Comment