As traffic picks up, so does city’s air pollution.

Easing of coronavirus shutdowns brings city’s level of emissions back to normal

WASHINGTON — Houston’s air pollution is returning to normal levels, following a period of cleaner skies during the stay-at-home orders put in place to slow the spread the coronavirus.

As Gov. Greg Abbott moves to reopen Texas’ economy, vehicles are back on the roads and with them come emissions from the burning of gasoline and diesel.

Ozone levels have now surpassed legal limits five times since April 20 after staying unusually low for more than a month. Nitrogen oxide emissions — a key contributor to smog — are back near where they were before the coronavirus shutdowns began, said Daniel Cohan, an environmental engineering professor at Rice University.

“It looks like most of the reduction in nitrogen dioxide over Houston has now faded,” he said. “There appears to be a partial bounce back in travel.”

At 5 p.m. Monday, traffic was backed up around Houston’s inner Loop, with cars only moving at 12 mph along a two-mile stretch of Interstate 59 and 18 mph along a 1½-mile stretch of Texas 225, according to the regional transportation authority Houston TranStar.

One Twitter user in Houston posted at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday: “Great Houston Traffic Is Back.”

That comes after two months of virtually trafficfree highways, when the typ

ical rush hour traffic jams seemed memories of a distant era.

Over the six-week period between mid-March and the end of April, trips to work in Texas were down 45 percent from before the coronavirus shutdowns began, according to data assembled by Google. Visits to shops, restaurants and movie theaters were down 25 percent.

Visits to parks, though, increased 13 percent.

Steve Gonzales / Staff photographer The absence of traffic during the coronavirus shutdown reduced pollution in Houston. With the economy reopening, both traffic and pollution are making a comeback.