Traffic Woes, Pollution, and Few Solutions

By Ranjit Kumar Dansil

How often than not do we come across horrible traffic situation in our day-to-day lives? How often than not do we feel disgusted, blinded, suffocated, irritated by the smoke, pollution, and congested space when we hit the roads? How often than not we struggle to breathe because of the smoke emitted by the vehicles ahead of us, remain almost stationary or move at snail’s pace? The answer is almost on a daily basis. But, the question remains what can the government, Traffic Department, or common men do to make our journey and life easier.

The solutions are many and most of them are not beyond our reach. First and foremost, we need to act responsibly. We need to follow traffic rules, use public transport as much as possible, use car pooling, and keep our vehicles well maintained so that we add the least possible to our already burdened atmosphere. We need to stop competing with each other to squeeze ourselves into the slightest possible space ahead of us. And, no stunts whatsoever on a busy road! Planting more trees would be the best possible way to get cleaner air.

Now comes the part of the government. The government needs to ensure that the roads are smooth and wide. It needs to make the roads free of illegal encroachers and potholes. Come rain and our roads turn into almost water bodies! The authorities need to ensure that the drainage system functions properly so as to not flood our roads. Any construction/maintenance work needs to be undertaken only during the off-road hours. It needs to build more fly overs, introduce better public transport, plant more trees, and come up with new strategies from time-to-time to easy the burden on our already overcrowded roads.

The Traffic Department needs to ensure that all the traffic signal lights are well maintained and functioning accurately. Almost on a daily basis we see three-wheelers and four-wheelers emitting such thick smoke as if they are trying to ape rockets! Commuters, especially the ones on their two wheelers, are the worst affected by these irresponsible violators. In a move to check such violations, there should be more strict rules for traffic violation. And these should aim at to reach the zero-violation situation in a long-run. They need to be compulsorily educated on the hazards poised by them when they break the rules and how they are adding into the disastrous environmental situation by not adhering to the pollution norms. Their vehicles should be handed over to them only after those have been repaired/fixed so as to adhere to the pollution norms.

Well, there are many such solutions we can come with to make our lives lot easier. But, unless we implement these ideas, we will continue to suffer the way we are suffering today. Time to wake up, shall we?

No matter whatever your profession is or which area in a city you belong to, the daily traffic problem is the part and parcel of the life. People in the city have adapted to the changes and traffic problem. We tried to focus on the daily traffic problem that we do face in the cities and few possible solutions those can be implemented with no extra cost!