The Financial Times ran a full-page article yesterday (6/11/2019) under the headline “The Dirtiest Place in London”. It covered the air pollution on the London Underground and the risks to health. It said “the Tube is by far the most polluted part of the City. Fine particles of dust, metal, skin and clothing fibre have built up in the tunnels over a century of use, leaving a toxic miasma that is stirred up by passenger trains and inhaled by passengers”.

The FT did a survey of some of the central tunnels and found air pollution levels exceeded World Health Organisation guidelines by as much as ten times. The deepest lines were the worst – namely the Central, Victoria and Northern lines. Particulate (PM2.5) levels can be many times that of roadside levels in London – up to 20 times for the Northern line.

This is not a new news as we covered this issue on our blog in January. But the FT article is well worth reading.

Is Mayor Sadiq Khan going to do anything about this soon? Apart from doing some more cleaning it seems not. So while he taxes allegedly polluting car drivers the dangers from other sources are downplayed with little action taken. Perhaps it’s because fixing the problem would cost TfL and the Mayor money whereas motorists are a source of taxation.

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