It is believed that traffic and pollution issues would be best tackled by inflating the price of petroleum. In my opinion, this idea is completely flawed and there are several reasonable alternatives.
Clearly the price of fuel has little to do with pressing problems of traffic and pollution. The inevitable demand for time efficience and safe commuting in the modern world makes the change of fuel prices become rather insignificant, which proves the ineffectiveness of the suggested policy. In other words, even if the price were increased, people would still travel by their preferred form of transport on a daily basis and the problems of traffic and pollution would remain. Additionally, this solution could easily trigger social disagreement and resentment. This, coupled with the reluctance of using expensive fuel to travel every day, could be counter-productive and this proposed idea would become irrelevant.
On the other hand, alternatives to increasing the price of petrol show greater effectiveness. Firstly, governments could implement certain regulations restricting the use of private vehicles such as cars and turn people to using public transportation. This would relieve many roads from heavy traffic congestion by reducing the number of vehicles on the road, which in turn alleviates the problem of pollution caused by exhaust emissions. Secondly, in many cities around the world, cycling has proved to be an effective, environmentally friendly form of alternative transport and should be encouraged more in other major cities. Certain infrastructure, such as separate zones for cyclists, should be created to help avoid the overload of traffic during rush hour when the number of vehicles can exceed the road’s capacity.
In conclusion, I believe that heightening the price of fuel used for travelling to address traffic and pollution problems is somewhat absurd; and that there is a number of other more suitable and effective solutions.
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