Vancouver, a congested green city?

Vancouver has recently been rated as the most congested cities in Canada, and the second most in North America only behind Los Angeles. The main reason for this result is due to the lack of major freeway network in Vancouver, so congestion makes traffic time much longer during rush hours. Even though the city is planning for a green city with no freeways but more buses or bikes to cut CO2 emission, many people still drive their cars for commuting in Vancouver.

 
Congested streets in Downtown Vancouver,  
http://investmeinmymotley.files.wordpress.com 
/2012/06/vancouver_traffic_jam-thumb-480xauto-1585.jpg

Cars produce CO2 by burning fossil fuels for energy, and CO2 is known as a contributor to global warming. Unfortunately, the goal of green city cannot be reached with traffic congestion since studies in California calculates the amount of CO2 produced at steady speed (45-50 mph) and with frequent stops, and the result shows that traffic congestion actually increases CO2 emission over distance traveled. When the car rapidly decelerates or accelerates, there is a higher engine load so the amount of CO2 produced increases. When a car is stuck in traffic, the CO2 produced over distance traveled is even much higher. Therefore, more CO2 is produced when there is heavy congestion during Vancouver’s rush hours.

Comparison of fuel consumption,
http://www.iru.org/en_policy_co2_response_flowingtraffic 

The study also provides suggested solutions to this problem,  migrating traffic off busy roads to alternative smooth ones in a designed road network. In Vancouver’s case, such a system can either be accomplished by decreasing the input:lowering the number of drivers or increasing the output: build more roads. However, no long term solution has been planned for the first option since Translink is cutting services. Therefore, the congested roads must be considered for Vancouver  to become a green city, and it is crucial to have smoothly running traffic in the region. Fast moving traffic does not only reduce the traffic time for drivers, but also makes the city’s air greener.

This blog is written by Chen Cui