How unhealthy is it to eat in a curbside patio next to traffic? Most CaféTO diners can breathe easy
Though air pollution is a serious threat, most experts say dining in traffic likely isn’t dangerous — and in some cases inside might be worse.
10 comments
I'm not worried about the air, I'm worried about our drivers that make a habit of running through storefronts or bus shelters. In Toronto, a dropped water bottle is as much of a concern as cancer.
This is hilarious because there are no studies. So no studies have been done. So it’s ok to eat on patios because we haven’t looked into it and don’t worry about it.
It's the noise factor for me. On a regular patio, the noise is only coming from one side. On one of these roadside patios, you are getting lots of noise from the cars and people walking on the sidewalk.
The replies here are making me think we need a list of every backyard patio in the city instead - I much prefer those to ones on the road.
I was at a roadside patio the other day and it was slightly windy and they had to keep coming around the patio to replace our water glasses because there was so much visible dirt - probably not something I wanna do again
What about dirt being kicked up by vehicles; couldn’t the wind take the dirt into one’s food?
I would prefer take out and just go have a picnic at a park. That’s just me though.
It’s amazing how Toronto continues to cater to the automobile. Despite pedestrians dying everyday; gas at dollars a litre; bicycles being mowed down daily etc.
imagine worrying about pollution on the patio and you've been walking on the same sidewalk 2 feet away for years already
The noise is far worse. If I can hear loud cars 35 floors up, then its much worse at street level.
Queen East in the Beach...during the day it's idling cars, bumper to bumper a few feet from your table. At night, it's a little bit of street racing or what we call 'look at me, I have a small penis' drive-bys. We had two multiple vehicle accidents within weeks of each other. Neither of them (to my knowledge) damaged any CafeTO spots.....however I certainly don't feel safe behind a wood pallet partitiion and a couple of flower filled window boxes, would you?
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