Now we finally know why so many city dwellers are depressed — and no, it’s not because of your failing local sports teams.

A new study from King’s College of London found that even tiny increases in vehicle emissions in highly polluted neighborhoods were correlated with shockingly high rates of clinical depression among residents — even when the researchers controlled for common environmental contributors to mental health conditions, like lack of access to mood-boosting green space or substandard housing.

Though all the regions the researchers studied had high rates of vehicle-related pollution, people who lived in neighborhoods that had just 3 micrograms of nitrogen dioxide more per cubic meter had a stunning 39 percent higher risk of a depression diagnosis, when compared with the residents of neighborhoods with the lowest levels of NO2, which is commonly found in diesel exhaust emitted by heavy trucks.

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I don’t drive but I live on a four lane road in front of trafic light and beyond particles, for me it’s a combination of multiple things, all from cars.

There’s the pollution from the combustion particles, but the noise is also a significant source of stress. From the young dudes that want to impress and rev their engines, to the huge trucks with trailers, they are all noisy and it makes it impossible to keep the windows open. Even the electric cars are noisy. Some of them sound like they are constantly honking at low volume. Plus, their tires are also making that white noise when they move at a certain speed, and they also shed microplastics.

And then because we don’t have emergency lanes, there are several emergency vehicles passing in front of my apartment multiple times a day, sirens blasting and honking at cars stuck in trafic.

Also, the visual aspect of a car sewer makes me depressed. Seeing them everywhere. A sea of cars in cities, but also deep in nature.

Last year I visited a few Carribean islands and all of them were choked by cars. Want to take a hike? Just get a car, there’s a parking on the top of the volcano.

The article ends on the note that electric cars will at least help with the pollution from combustion particles, which is good. But the noise and the sea of cars will remain, they’ll just be electric.

This tracks, specially because the most depressing place, the suburbs, is chock-full of cars

If pollutants are the primary driver of adverse mental health outcomes, I’d expect to see Beijing be a never ending parade of people jumping from buildings. Given that’s not the case, I wonder if there is a maximum effect of pollution, or if it just happens to be a correlation

Cars cause a lot of adverse effects. I live right near a road that is entirely too fast. It has a direct effect on my mental health in that it means I can’t open my window due to noise. I can’t easily walk anywhere because half the places I could walk are cut off by a fast and busy road. Anecdotally I’d feel like noise and loss of mobility from nearby roads would have a more substantial effect on mental health, and it doesn’t seem like the study did anything to isolate the different variables caused by cars