Traffic and education

Re “Schools still rise close to freeways,” Sept. 24

Traffic on freeways generates pollution that increases various health risks. But pollution also arises from traffic on surface streets. I’ve substituted at several schools. Not only are pollution and traffic frequently bad around schools, so too is traffic noise. Lucky are the students who have a campus away from heavily traveled roads, with trees and with birds that sing.

As the world transitions to sustainable energy usage, Helen Bernstein High School will be a school where people will depend on filtered air. The filters won’t get all the particles, and gases like carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen will go through. Forget about being able to open a window for light and air and maybe to hear a bird sing. Thank goodness they didn’t name it after Rachel Carson.

Stephen V. Hymowitz

Los Angeles

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It seems that the Los Angeles Unified School District is just trying to put these schools up because voters have been demanding that more schools be built in urban areas.

Despite the law that schools shouldn’t be by freeways, the district continues to build so that it can tell voters something is being done. What the district is really doing is building schools to educate children but also harming future generations.

Sondra Lane

Los Angeles