The commute that pollutes: How Ghana’s poor urban cities are sickening millions
Every weekday morning in Ghana’s largest cities, the same ritual unfolds: even before the sun has risen, one side of the motorway fills as commuters, who live mostly on the outskirts of the cities, pile into vehicles that crawl toward ministries, hospitals, universities, courts and commercial centres clustered in the city’s core. By mid-morning, thousands … The post The commute that pollutes: How…
In Ghana's largest cities, the daily commute is a suffocating ordeal for millions of people living on the outskirts. As the sun rises, commuters pour onto the motorways, choking the roads with endless queues of idling vehicles. Trotros, the shared minivans, clog the streets, their engines emitting a noxious haze of exhaust fumes. By evening, the traffic flows in the opposite direction as people return home from their exhausting journeys.
Urban planners and public-health experts argue that this daily gridlock is a result of poor urban planning, causing serious health consequences. The concentration of essential services, such as jobs, healthcare, education, commerce, and government offices in limited areas has forced people to travel long distances every day, trapping them in a cycle of pollution and stress.
Mr Alex Johnson, an urban planner with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, highlights that if all essential services are clustered in one location, it leads to the worst kind of pollution. Transport cannot be viewed separately from the overall urban plan; it is a critical component. Instead of merely expanding roads or increasing public transportation, experts suggest that Ghana must address the root cause of the problem by decentralising public institutions, encouraging businesses to establish operations in secondary urban centres, and improving public transport links to emerging hubs.
The health burden of this daily commute falls on commuters and roadside workers who inhale dangerous fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and black carbon. These pollutants contribute to chronic diseases such as asthma, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Kwabena Boateng, a clerk from Kasoa, spends nearly three hours each morning trapped in an idling trotro, breathing in polluted air while his seven-year-old daughter suffers from chest tightness and burning eyes.
Taxi driver Kofi Mensah, who has spent 20 years navigating the congested roads, now suffers from a persistent cough, chronic headaches, and breathlessness.
Medical professionals confirm that repeated exposure to polluted air leads to chronic inflammation, worsens asthma, reduces lung function, and increases the risk of cardiovascular problems. The annual treatment bill for patients with pollution-linked conditions, including COPD, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, and childhood pneumonia, amounts to about GH₵174 million ($US15 million). While the National Health Insurance Scheme covers 70 percent of these costs, families still bear the remaining GH₵52 million out of pocket.
The urban development model in Ghana is not an accident; it is a result of poor planning, creating exactly the conditions in which air pollution thrives. The solution lies in deliberate decentralisation of public institutions, encouraging businesses to establish in secondary urban centres, and improving public transport links to connect these emerging hubs. Only by addressing the underlying condition of how cities grow can Ghana hope to alleviate the burden of this deadly commute.
Written by urgent.news from Ghanaian Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
