You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Write about the following topic:
The only way to reduce the amount of traffic in cities today is by reducing the need for people to travel from home to work, shopping and education. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.
Sample Answer 1: [Disagreement]
The most viable solution to the ever-growing traffic problem in urban areas, according to some, is to minimize the citizen’s need for travel to workplaces, shopping malls and schools. However, I disagree with this viewpoint.
First, all professionals can not work from home. Doctors, engineers, bankers, nurses, sales executives and many other professionals have to visit their workplaces and meet people to execute their responsibilities. Similarly, if we shop online, dispatch staff will still be on the road to deliver products. In addition to this, many professional courses require field studies and laboratory work and an online course cannot provide such facilities. Online courses cannot be compared with classroom teaching and the quality of the products cannot be judged just by the pictures on a laptop or a phone. Thus people need to get outside to do their daily work. Furthermore, if somebody is confined to one place for a long to avoid being outside for their daily needs and professional duties, he or she may develop physical and psychological problems.
To truly tackle traffic congestion, we need more realistic solutions than restricting people indoors. One such solution can be improving public transportation. The convenience of public conveyance would discourage many to use their private cars, which is the primary reason for bad traffic in many cities. Furthermore, the government can encourage people to use an eco-friendly mode of transport, like the bicycle, by dedicating a separate lane for them. Many European and Asian cities, for example, already have separate cycle lanes and this has been truly effective in promoting environment-friendly vehicles and reducing traffic congestion.
In conclusion, in order to minimize traffic jams, the authority should enhance mass transportation facilities and encourage people to use eco-friendly transport rather than planning to restrict people’s movements.
[Written by – Sabrina Qamar]
Sample Answer 2: [Partial agreement]
Urbanization has brought the term traffic congestion into existence. A school of thought believes that traffic can only be controlled by limiting daily commuters’ need for travel. However, I am not convinced that this is the only or the best way.
Apparently, reasons that substantiate the claim “the less frequently people travel in a city, the fewer traffic jam they create” – require thorough analysis. Firstly, city dwellers commute daily primarily for their study, business, job, shopping and social needs. Some of these could be done from home through e-learning, online shopping, and the working from home concept due to the advancement of technology. This will reduce traffic to a certain extent. To illustrate, a survey conducted by the Australian Traffic Authority outlines that 75% of commuters in private cars travel for shopping, job and education and it is clear that if people can work from home, do online shopping and enrol in online courses, traffic congestion would be reduced, if not solved.
However, working from home is not permissible for a great number of professionals such as nurses, doctors, police and so on. Therefore, they must travel to and from their workplaces daily. Moreover, online learning cannot replace the classroom-based education system and online shopping is yet to substitute the traditional shopping method. Thus it is evident that controlling the necessity of travel for the day to day activities of citizens is not the only way to manage traffic problems. Improving public transportation, carpooling and encouraging pedestrians and cyclists could be some great solutions.
To conclude, limiting city dwellers’ needs for their daily commute may help control traffic problems to some extent but other measures should be in place. The government should encourage people to use eco-friendly transportations to tackle both bad traffic and pollution.
[Written by – Anu Scaria]
Sample Answer 3: [Agreement]
Traffic congestion is perhaps a curse in many cities and it kills valuable time on the one hand and degrades people’s overall productivity and economic progress on the other hand. Since the main reason for traffic gridlocks on the roads is the overwhelming number of people who commute daily, limiting it to a reasonable extent is conceivably the best solution to curb the bad traffic.
Admittedly, the government and city administration cannot ask citizens to stay indoors and arrange the “work from home” facility for every professional as making it a regulation would create confusion and discontent. Moreover, people need to get outside not only for their professional, shopping and educational needs but also to socialise. Thus restricting people’s need to commute daily seems like an unrealistic idea to many.
However, there are ways to implement it without creating any confusion and dissatisfaction among citizens and curbing the traffic problems at the same time. Since we need to reduce the number of commuters and vehicles from the road, which is the only viable solution to traffic problems, we can sort out the professionals who can work from home and then distribute the facilities like shopping centres, parks and banks to all residential areas so that people can get them within walking distance. For instance, IT professionals, lawyers, bookkeepers, customer service representatives, instructors and similar other professionals do not need to travel to their office daily as they can execute most of their responsibilities from home with the help of technology.
Moreover, improving some facilities and digitalising many services can deter people from unnecessary daily commuting. For instance, many parents travel to their children’s school daily to drop them and pick them up and if schools offer safe and convenient transportation facilities, parents would rely on such facility rather than travelling daily. Similarly, banking, utility bill payment and help desk should be digitalised so that we can complete our tasks from home rather than visiting those offices.
To conclude, traffic congestion in many cities is so big a problem that the authority is struggling to keep it under control. A large number of commuters and the vehicles they use are the primary reason for that, and it is expected that the government would facilitate people so that they need to commute less frequently.
[Written by – Arthur Wellesley]