Road Rage is Only One Part: Traffic is Bad for the Environment

Millions of vehicles churn fumes into the atmosphere as we spend hours in traffic.

Flooding has traffic at a standstill. (Image altered by The Quint)

You’re sitting in a car in Delhi. Or Bengaluru. Or Gurugram. Really, it doesn’t matter which; only that you’ve been stuck for hours as torrential rains flood the city you’re in. As you sit there, your car continues to sputter fumes from the gently rumbling engine. You know if you open your window, you won’t be able to breathe.

For those who were stuck for three hours trying to cover a distance of 5 kilometres, the struggle was real, turning Gurugram into Gurujam, as angry commuters noted on Twitter. But the consequences are deeper than disgruntled car owners trapped in the rain. All the hours spent in the car release high levels of pollutants and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

(Infographic: The Quint/Liju Joseph)

Around the world, traffic contributes to 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, rapidly heating up the planet, according to the Center for Biological diversity. In India alone there are 182 million registered vehicles, and the number is growing exponentially every year.

Based on estimates calculated by the Natural Resources Defense Council in the US, for every 10 minutes people spend in traffic, they use up between 0.11 and 0.26 litres of gas. If someone sits in traffic for 42 hours, that adds up to 47.6 litres of gas a year.

Of course, emissions standards for cars in the US are different than in India, so calculations would be different here, but US numbers do provide a baseline. And that baseline says India emits 44.5 billion pounds (20.2 billion kilos) of carbon into the atmosphere from traffic alone every year.

Heavy rain left the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway inundated on Thursday. (Photo Courtesy: Twitter/Cryptic Mind)

At the rate at which cities are developing across the country, it’s likely we will keep seeing flooding like this. Concrete cakes large areas of land, giving water no escape route when the rains begin to hammer down.

Every year, buildings collapse in the floods. Traffic becomes unbearable as engines drown and people are trapped.

Hate to break it to you, Delhi/Gurugram/Bengaluru-ites, but without a better water drainage system, it’s not going to get better any time soon.