Giving Compass' Take:

• Researchers found that in Boston, the stay-at-home orders dramatically reduced emissions due to a reduction in car traffic, and overall led to cleaner air in the city. 

• How can city officials start planning to reduce emissions for the long-term? 

• Read about the link to air pollution and COVID-19 deaths. 

“It is absolutely real,” says Lucy Hutyra, an associate professor of earth and environment at Boston University who monitors carbon emissions and air pollutants around Boston and the state of Massachusetts.

Over the last month, since Governor Charlie Baker issued a stay-at-home advisory on March 23, Hutyra has continued tracking air quality using traffic data from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, as well as air sensors her team has placed around the Boston University Charles River Campus and the city of Boston.

She has looked at how many cars are on the road in two locations, one in Newton and the other at the intersection of I-495 and I-95, finding a 50% to 60% decrease in traffic.

“It’s as if I magically implemented our most ambitious emissions reduction policies,” Hutyra says. “That drop is astounding.”

Along with plummeting emissions from traffic, carbon emissions in Boston overall have fallen by an estimated 15%, following a pattern observed around the world in areas where people have sheltered in place to avoid infection with COVID-19.

Read the full article about emissions dop in Boston by Jessica Colarossi at Futurity.