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Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
National
Ben Jealous

We have a chance to cut air pollution caused by big trucks

Congestion on the Dan Ryan Expy. Highways that run through Chicago’s South and West sides put residents at point-blank range for the pollution that comes from the millions of vehicles driving on them, Ben Jealous writes. (Sun-Times file photo)

The interstates built in the 1950s and 1960s killed the vitality of the communities where people of color and the poor lived, from Overtown in Miami to the Hill District in Pittsburgh to the South and West sides of Chicago. The disruption and segregation of those communities happened by design.

The harm continues to this day for the residents who remain in those neighborhoods. Because the highways run through their backyards, those people are at point-blank range for the pollution from the millions of vehicles driving the interstates burning fossil fuels.

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