daagh Can you please provide a critique on this essay?
Traffic in the central city is the number one complaint of our residents, so I urge you to consider this solution. We should invest in doubling our bus service and adding a light rail system, giving more options to those who don't want to drive through the city. Furthermore, we should make public transportation more accessible by reducing the fees to ride. With less traffic people will be more productive, and with higher productivity comes higher revenue and more taxes, so the system will likely pay for itself.While the mayor makes some relevant points in his proposal with regards to addressing the core issue of traffic in the city. His suggestion to alleviate the traffic problem by doubling bus service and adding a light rail system may at first sight seem like a good solution, there are a number of issues with the proposed solution. In addition, the plan certainly opens itself to criticism once the mayor suggests to reduce the fees on public transport while funding the investments in new bus services, light rail system and subsidies with increased revenues resulting from productivity.
In terms of passengers per vehicle, the bus services and light rail system definitely make a sound case for traffic reduction because of the assumed reduction in cars that will follow. However, isn't this a case of replacing cars with buses? How would more buses and less cars have an impact on the traffic situation? There needs to be more analysis around the impact on average speed on the streets with the replacement of cars with buses for the people opting for public transport. When compared to buses, the light rail systems are definitely a better option though come at a much larger cost.
This brings us to the point of financing such proposed investments and subsidies. The mayor's proposal makes a simplistic assumption that with less traffic people would be more productive without providing any evidence. Will average travel time for those commuting to the city be less on public transport than in cars? Even if that were to be the case, the link between productivity, revenue and higher taxes is unclear. The number of disposable hours would increase but this may not necessarily translate into more work from the employee, which in turn doesn't translate into higher revenue in all cases.
The mayor's attempt to propose a viable solution for the city's traffic problems seems plausible at first sight. A deeper analysis into the cause and effect relationship reveals a number of inconsistencies in the transport solution as well as the funding for such solution. The mayor is relying on untangible to pay for the tangible why there needs to be a better mechanism to raise funding - for instance tolls at motorways, public transport fees.