Please join us for this CLAS Lunch & Learn featuring Dr. Daniel Rodríguez, Chancellor's Professor of City & Regional Planning, UC Berkeley.
Lunch will be served. Open to all, registration required.
Abstract
Many Latin American cities face the overlapping challenges of extreme heat, poor air quality, and high traffic mortality. This talk examines recent research on heat and road safety across 272 Latin American cities, alongside an analysis of how car bans affect pollution in eight Colombian cities. Regarding road safety, the data reveals that traffic mortality risk generally increases alongside rising temperatures. This risk becomes significantly elevated on extremely hot days—specifically those in the 95th and 99th temperature percentiles—though these dangers are unevenly distributed across different age groups, transport modes, and commute types.
In the study of Colombian car bans, researchers estimated average decreases in $PM_{2.5}$ levels of between 4% and 6%. However, the findings also highlight complex behavioral responses, including anticipatory drops in pollution before a ban begins and a "compensatory rebound" where pollution levels spike immediately afterward. Together, these results emphasize the urgent need to prioritize vulnerable road users, particularly those in peripheral areas. These residents often endure long, grueling commutes in informal, non-climate-controlled transport, leaving them disproportionately exposed to the dual threats of extreme heat and hazardous pollution.
Bio
Daniel A. Rodríguez is Chancellor’s Professor of City & Regional Planning and Director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the relationship between transportation, land development, and the health and environmental consequences that follow. Since 2016, Rodriguez has been recognized as one of the 25 most impactful planning scholars in North America based on the number of times his publications have been cited. His research has been funded by the NIH, the EPA, the US Department of Transportation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust.
Co-sponsored by the Knowlton School and the Sustainability Institute.