A report released this week by the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force finds that New York and New Jersey rank 1^st and 2^nd respectively in cancer risk from diesel soot per capita (Connecticut ranked 13^th). Using US EPA data and methodology, the report quantifies the health risk from diesel exhaust, concluding that inhaled diesel soot contributed to more than 2,300 premature deaths in NY State and nearly 900 premature deaths in New Jersey in 1999, the most recent year with available data. Diesel exhaust contains smog-forming pollutants and as many as 40 hazardous air pollutants (including 15 known to cause cancer), and has been linked to asthma, heart attacks, cancer and birth defects.

Data from the FHWA indicates that NYC truck traffic is likely to grow roughly 51% from now until 2020. Estimates for NJ are similar. Managing freight traffic and its environmental and other consequences is clearly a job state and big-city transportation and environmental agencies need to make central to their missions in the 21st Century. 

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