The Metrolinx is planning to shift Toronto's office workers into a commuting mode to help ease the city's pollution and road congestion. By spring the agency is expected to release its blueprint for an integrated infrastructure to make the shift from driving to commuting.

The 2006 Transportation Tomorrow study said less than 8 percent of residents living outside Toronto use public transport while only 23 percent of those with homes within the city commute

An Ottawa councilor warned of air pollution levels worsening in Parliament Hill. For the second half of 2007, Ottawa registered 35 days of moderate or poor air quality, occurring most of the time during rush hours of summer.

Capital Council Clive Doucet is spearheading a drive to improve air quality in Ottawa by sponsoring the conduct of a study to identify parts of Ottawa badly hit by the smog. Doucet is also planning to host an air quality summit by fall

Inhaling diesel fumes, even for just a half an hour, triggers a stress response in the brain that may have damaging long-term effects, researchers revealed.

The researchers let 10 volunteers be exposed to the exhaust of a car inside a room, with its level of diesel exhaust similar to those in a typical busy street. They were asked to stay in the room for an hour while their brains were scanned using quantitative electroencephalography. The scanning continued even after they left the exposure room

The vehement protest of residents near London's Heathrow Airport to a planned expansion of U.K.'s main gateway that the noise pollution affects them negatively may have a strong argument in their favor. The report of a 4-year study released Tuesday warned that airport noise could be deadly to residents.

Aircraft noise goes beyond disturbed sleeps and damaged eardrums. It may also cause hypertension, strokes, kidney diseases and dementia. According to national projections, of 6 million Britons who are suffering from high blood pressure, 100,000 would eventually suffer from strokes and heart attacks and half may not survive

A recent study concluded that the noise that comes from airport or road traffic might raise blood pressure levels during sleep.

Experts from the Imperial College London drew their findings from an experiment that involved monitoring 140 volunteers in their sleep. The subjects, whose homes were located near one of three airports, were observed in terms of blood pressure levels, which were monitored every 15 minutes