Car Pollution in the City

 

Exhaust Fumes Clouding up the City

“Automobiles are often conveniently tagged as the villains responsible for the ills of cities and the disappointments and futilities of city planning. But the destructive effect of automobiles are much less a cause than a symptom of our incompetence at city building.”
― Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

 

                                                            Smokey Maxi Exhaust in 
                                                             Belmont Port of Spain

    

This seemingly harmless activity of driving through the streets can result in environmental air pollution if you have a smoky exhaust coming from your vehicle. The driver is contaminating the air by releasing harmful fumes from his car into the atmosphere which is a potential health and ecological hazard.

                                                   Traffic Congestion at Chaguanas                                     

 

Can you imagine the high level of air pollution in a traffic congested city? Smoky vehicles pollute the city leaving a cloud of gaseous pollutants hovering over us to produce air pollution. Smoke from burning fuels and garbage along with other air pollutants like dust and chemical fumes accumulate in the atmosphere contaminating the air and endanger our lives. In an urban area like Chaguanas hundreds of vehicles enter and leave on a daily basis making transportation the main source of air pollution. Scores of cars, trucks and other motor vehicles emit gaseous pollutants like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfurous oxides and hydrocarbons- all the gases involved in enhancing the Green House effect. Research found that working vehicles produce over a third of the carbon monoxides and nitrous oxides on the atmosphere and accounts for over 20% of global warming (BC Air Quality). Vehicles contribute to air pollution not only by emissions from vehicular operations but also during manufacturing, refueling and through dumping.

 

One major pollutant from motor vehicles especially diesel engines is particulate matter (PM). These very minute particles formed during combustion in the engines emit metals, acids, carbons and soot giving the murky color of smog. This is a serious health hazard because such particles can penetrate into the lungs. Another air pollutant is nitrogen oxides created in the combustion process of the fuels. This pollutant irritates the lungs and reduces its air capacity causing respiratory problems like coughing and choking. The body’s defense against respiratory infections weakens making us prone to pneumonia and influenza. In the presence of sunlight nitrogen oxides react with hydrocarbons forming part of the ozone layer at ground level known as smog. Hydrocarbons also cause health problems in the respiratory system. The combustion of motor vehicles fuels like gasoline emits a next the poisonous, odorless gas - carbon monoxide. When carbon monoxide is inhaled into your body blocks oxygen from going to your vital organs like the heart and brain. Other hazardous air toxins emitted from trucks and cars are cancer causing agents like benzene, and butane. These are also the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

The growth of urban sprawl over the past decade has led to the dependency of automobiles and various forms of transport to access the city. A person can now enjoy personal mobility and freedom of transport to go or to come whenever they feel like it. Automobile ownership create the pathway for opportunities such as employment, further education mainly tertiary level, social and sporting activities. However, this gives rise to many social, economic and environmental issues that impacts the city. “These negative impacts are felt most heavily on non- car users, a disproportionate number of whom are from the low income groups” (Hall and Barrett 2012). 

In Human Geography, this situation presents a serious problem to the social aspect of urban geography.  The poor air quality are felt mainly by the lower class of the city who are employed in the labor sector such as construction workers outside buildings who are expose to direct air pollution and vehicle emission as compared to the upper classes who sits comfortably in a fully air-condition office employed in the services sector. Air pollution causes major health problems to the lower classes with lower income jobs who can barely afford regular doctor checkups and relies on the public health facilities to ensure their well-being. 

Furthermore, another social issue is traffic congestion along major streets in urban areas results in death and injury among the urban population (Hall and Barrett 2012).  Many children who reside in apartment buildings and inner city housing don’t have luxury of accessing community parks and recreational facilities. As such, their only open space would be the sidewalks or on the streets where sometime the outcomes are accidents or injuries. This is probably because open or green spaces in urban areas are usually converted into shopping mall or commercial center, government offices, industries and car parks. When urban land is loss due to development there is the loss of social interactions among the inner city dwellers.

                                           Community Play Park at Gulf View San Fernando

There is the need for change as city dwellers can car poll, utilized public transportation or even bicycles to reduce air pollution in the city and be considerate for our lower income groups in society.

The conversion of urban land that impacted the social life of urban dwellers was said to be first recognized by Jane Jacobs (Hall and Barrett 2012).  

“The more successfully a city mingles everyday diversity of uses and users in its everyday streets, the more successfully, casually (and economically) its people thereby enliven and support well-located parks that can thus give back grace and delight to their neighborhoods instead of vacuity.”
― Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

For in-depth information on the topic you can visit the following web links:

• This article gives a description of “The Great Smog” in the city of London. This city has been affected by pollution since medieval times and still continuous to persist as it’s estimated by the (OECD 2012) that by 2050 outdoor air pollution would be the top environmental cause of death. http://www.igbp.net/news/features/features/urbanairpollutionanewlookatanoldproblem.5.19895cff13e9f675e253f0.html

• The article entitled Vulnerability to Air Pollution in Latin America and the Caribbean Region speaks on the growth of urban centers and the high health risk associated with air pollution. The article reports that this is due to the inequalities in land use and transport planning poor fuel quality, energy-intensive productive activities, and weak air quality management capacity. Exposure to air pollutants is higher around congested areas where informal and formal economic activities take place during the day. The most affected are the most vulnerable: the elderly, the poor, the children, the sick. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/LACEXT/0,,contentMDK:21219289~pagePK:146736~piPK:146830~theSitePK:258554,00.html

References

Hall, Tim. and Heather Barrett. (2012). Urban Geography 4^th edition. London and New York: Routledge

Goodreads. 2014. “Jane Jacobs Quotes”. Accessed March 25, 2014. http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/17285.Jane_Jacobs

British Columbia. 2014. “Pollutants Vehicles Emit”. Accessed March 25, 2014.  http://www.bcairquality.ca/topics/vehicle-pollutants.html

New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. 2000. “Hazardous Substances Fact Sheet”. Accessed March 25, 2014.  http://nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/1376.pdf