Development of Public Transportation - Essay Example

Name of writer appears here] [Course name appears here] [Professor’s name appears here] [Date appears here] Development of public transportation is a solution of traffic problem Introduction Traffic congestion is a terrible urban problem which is challenging the government and affecting our life quality negatively. It increases the rate of accident, air pollution, and waste-time. Those consequences of traffic congestion are directly related with economy. As Timothy J and David L .found that in 2000, nationwide, congestion brought a total lost of $100 billion (Lomax and Schrank, 2) The longest-running study of traffic congestion in America the Urban Mobility Study conducted annually for 19 years by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) confirms the trend: on a daily basis, Americans are experiencing longer delays, longer periods of congestion, and the spread of congestion across more and more of the nation’s roadways. This study of 75 urban areas, ranging in size from New York City to areas with 100,000+ populations, suggests that traffic congestion will continue to worsen as the number of vehicle miles traveled continues to grow. Causes of traffic congestion Some of the most common causes of traffic congestion include according to Highway Statistics Series “Population and economic growth spur travel demand, which, in the absence of other travel options, results in disproportionate increases in the use of motor vehicles. From 1980 to 2000, the U.S. population grew 24 percent, while the number of registered motor vehicles increased 46 percent and the number of vehicle miles traveled grew 80 percent.” (Highway Statistics Series, 1) Another reason pointed out by Card is that “Just-in-time business strategies designed to keep America competitive in the global economy require smaller but more frequent deliveries, resulting in more freight traffic on our roadways and more congestion.” (Card, 5) Sprawling development patterns in America’s urban and suburban areas often provide no choice but to use private vehicles for every travel need, continually increasing congestion and requiring ever more land devoted to roads and parking. Arguments against public transportation as solution for traffic problem It is urging that the government should devise effective strategies to solve it. Many scholars put the hope of solving traffic congestion on the development of public transportation, but it is not convincing for all the people. Some opposers say that the government funding for public transportation has been increasing dramatically in recent years, but the traffic problem is still remaining. In fact, just increasing the funding of public transportation politically is not an effective method, and the millions dollars is just a little part of a coherent, unified, and well-expended public transportation. Arguments for public transportation as solution for traffic problem The public transportation has a much bigger capacity than private vehicles. A private vehicle is average taking one or two passengers, that is one of the factors causing traffic congestion. According to Mary E. Peters, “From 1980 to 2000, the U.S population grew 24 percent, while the number of registered motor vehicles increased 46 percent.” (Peters, 3) Contrarily, such as buses, subways, and trains have the advantage of capacity which can take many passengers instead of letting each individual drive a car to congest the freeway. For example, a bus can fully take 60 passengers, and it means that 60 cars will be reduced from freeway. So more transits are taken, more congestion relief is provided by public transportation. Congestion Relief Provided by Public Transportation Los Angeles, CA Transit carries 30 percent of all trips into central Los Angeles. Without transit, Los Angeles would need an additional 1,400 freeway lane-miles. Maryland Transit removes 570,000 cars from traffic daily. St. Louis, MO MetroLink light rail users keep 12,700 cars a day out of rush-hour traffic. San Francisco, CA Bay Bridge Corridor Transit carries 38 percent of all trips in the corridor, without which a 50 percent increase in freeway capacity would be needed Source: Hansen, p.22 In addition, the public transportation has another advantage speed. The average speed of vehicles is eighty miles per hour on the no-congestion freeway. But, such as subways and electrical trains are traveling with a average speed at 160 miles per hour and this speed is upgrading with technique development. In contrary, 80 miles per hour seems a maximum speed for vehicles because the drives would be very dangerous when the speed excesses 80 miles per hour. Undoubtedly, extensive use of vehicles will cause air pollution and increase noisy. Traffic congestion, of course, accelerates it because when vehicles are traveling at a low speed, fuel would not burn thoroughly that result in more deleterious gases vending to air. How woefully it is, fuel do not serve as the energy, most of it becomes the source of pollution. As Shapiro found that “The 5.7 billion gallons of gasoline wasted in congestion in 2000 would fill 114 supertankers or 570,000 gasoline trucks”(Shapiro, p.40) in addition, due to the limiting capacity of private vehicles, average one person is owning a car that extremely makes the pollution problem worse. Contrarily, electrical power is used extensively in public transportation systems such as subways and electrical trains. I have ever experienced those advantages of public transportation. Near my home, at the cross of the Whilshier and Western street, there is a subway station which can reach downtown L.A., North Hollywood, and Long Beach. I will take that subway for every trip to downtown L.A because it is fast, and safe; I would never worry about accidents, and be annoyed by traffic congestion. And the fare is inexpensive, 3 dollars for unlimited-taken during a day. If I choose to drive to downtown, parking fee and risk of accident will annoy me, if I was unfortunate, a ticket would cost roughly 100 dollars. Even though the subway has those conveniences, it does not work as efficiently as expected. Because subway rails are very limiting in L.A and most places do not connect with subways. And buses are delayed by traffic congestion. So most California residents would choose to drive, even they know that traffic would waste their time because it seems more comfortable to sit in vehicle than to stand outside to wait the bus. Los Angeles is not the only city, which is lacking travel-lines of public transportation; in fact, according the reporters the statistics only 4.3 percent of miles on road system are served by public transportation and nearly 60 percent of the U.S population lives in major metropolitan areas of over 1 million, but only 8.3 percent of households have access to subway service. (Surface Transportation Policy, 1) Clearly, to increase transits is the most important fundamental of development of public transportation. The transits should contribute in intercity, fauboury, and even out of state, making it possible to any destination though transits. The coverage is the most critical element of an efficient public transportation system. As well known that Los Angels and Atlanta are the cities suffering for traffic congestion, and both cities have a low-covered transportation system. So most residents of these cities choose to drive to anywhere, even when the destination is include in the transportation system. As a Los Angeles resident said, “We have been accustomed to drive private vehicles; it looks like an anomaly to access to public transportation.” Contrarily, the situations at New York City which is coved with extensive rail lines are opposite. According to Rob Kischuk “New York City where public transportation is efficient and well accepted has over 700 stations accessible.” (Kischuk, A2) When people discuss the development of public transportation, most would simply emphasize on increasing the infrastructures, bus transits. Undoubtedly, those are a partial improvement of public transportation, but it is apparently not enough. An easy-accessed and comfortable environment of public transportation is also important. The theory is ability of something would be limited by the environment. Traffic congestion can be an example, vehicles’ speed is extremely limited by the traffic and actually their expected speed could be much faster, but the congesting environment dominates it. So to improve the environment should be included in the project of development of public transportation. Unfortunately, most civil engineers ignore the environment factors. Roads are continuously widened to accommodate worsening traffic, and that results in the pedestrian area shrinking. It seems that pedestrians are not supposed on the roads, and terrifying to cross streets. When you want cross the wide-street, you probably have to wait about 1 minute for a green light, while you probably have dogtrot across the street, because those stop car will only have about 30-second patience. Those cars are only about 1 foot away from the pedestrians and noising with aggressive engine sound. It is really a terrifying situation to walk the streets filled with vehicles. In addition, bus station area is very small, a small gloriette with a bench, and very close to the road. There are a lot subway stations, only having one entrance. These environmental factors delay the travelers to access to transits. It seems conflicting between pedestrian areas and road capacity; in fact, there is a method to balance it. Underground passage can prevent traveler from dangers and delay and would not conflict with the ground vehicles. Actually, most subways stations have built underground passages, but it is likes the coverage of transit, the range is very limiting and does not work well as expected. If we expected under-ground passages to exert its functions, its range has to be as developing as roads and be considered as important as the infrastructures of public transportation. All those developments of public transportation require millions dollar annually, and that seems unaffordable for the limiting government found which is still paying for traffic congestion. So the public transportation is developing at a slow speed; meanwhile people are losing the passion of development of it and began to suspect whether it is a working solution of traffic congestion. Humankind usually pays attention to visible investment and easily ignores the potential value or loss. So during the long-revolution of public transportation period, people began to oppose the proper strategies for solving traffic congestion. Traffic congestion is going worse, and the development of public is proceeding due to lack of money. So some scholars proposed that governments should devise a economic strategy to limit use of private vehicles such as high-cost parking, and implement congestion pricing. This strategy can relieve congestion as well as bring addition of fund for public transportation. But most people do not understand intending effects of this strategy, and think it is not fair to charge for using the common structures which is using their tax to support. While they ignored that traffic congestion is wasting their tax daily, and eventually affect the whole society. On way of preceding the development of public transportation, lack of fund is not the only barrier. Even amusing we have already establish an efficient public transportation system, how to make people accept it would be a challenging barrier. Because once people have been accustomed to something, it is hard to change their mind to accept new ideas, even those are advantaging. It is necessary to include multiple incentives to engage people to take public transportation. For example, combining free or reduced tickets with purchases, lottery subway tickets, and so on. Those will gradually get used to public transits. Conclusion In a word, development of public transportation is definitely a proper way to resolve traffic congestion, but it is not simple to emphasize on physical infrastructures or increase the amount of transits or bus rolling. It still needs multiple invisible strategies to impel. Both benefits of public transportation and negative consequences of traffic are considerable. Why we are still suffering from traffic congestion and not instead of engage in the development of public transportation. Read More