The Essay Topic- Increasing the price of petrol is the best way to solve growing traffic and pollution problems. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this? What other measures do you think might be effective?
The Essay: Raising petrol costs is considered to be one of the most effective way to curb escalating traffic and pollution problems. However, I completely disagree with the view, as in my opinion, it may not be as impactful as using other sustainable sources of renewable energy, in tackling this issue.
First, in spite of high petrol price, people will continue using it in the absence of better options of travel or commute. Presently, neither do we have other viable fuel options nor a satisfactory public transportation sysytem. In fact, with an increase in petrol charges, cost of goods will surge due to high transportation costs, creating detrimental effects on the economy.
Second, if sustainable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, which are converted to electricity, are utilized to run vehicles, there will be less emission of harmful gases like carbon monoxide, which contributes to increasing air pollution.
Finally, improvement in public transport will encourage people to travel by trains and buses at a cheaper rate. Thus it will minimize number of vehicles on the road and in turn pollution. For example, the Delhi government has significantly managed to limit the traffic and pollution, by starting a network of metro trains.
To conclude, according to me, stepping up the prices of petrol is not the best way to resolve the expanding traffic and pollution concern. However, effective ways to control this would be to use renewable sources of energy, instead of petrol, as well as upgrading public transport which will spawn lesser dependency on vehicles and minimise traffic and pollution challenges.