“Traffic is only one of the side effects of growth,” explains Roy Barnes. Barnes highlights how human overpopulation is having a negative effect on our daily lives. In the city of Los Angeles, CA, freeways are usually congested with vehicles, which cause long hours of traffic. According to RAND researchers from the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decision-making through research and analysis, Los Angeles traffic is the “worst in the nation” and affects “quality of life, economic competitiveness, and fuel economy” (Reducing). Drivers tend to get stressed or frustrated due to the number of hours lost stuck in traffic. Being aware and preoccupied with not causing a car accident, drivers cannot multitask …show more content…
However, those solutions are very expensive and require years to complete. Even though an increase in building more freeways will create less traffic, it requires a lot of work and money, which raises taxes on people’s salaries. A proposal to build a freeway tunnel that connects to the SR 710 in Los Angeles, CA to reduce traffic will cost approximately $1.5 billion (Analysis). Not only is the price outrageous, but also building a freeway means that many surrounding families will be affected because houses and business will have to be knocked down to create space. Public transportation’s cost is also high due to facility costs, external costs, such as accidents, and operating costs (Evaluating). Encouraging individuals to use public transportation is inconvenient because buses may go different routes from their desired destination, which causes people to walk for minutes or even hours. Public transportation can be effective for cities in the east coast like New York, where most of their businesses are close to each other. However, the case is different for the community living or working in the west because everything is separated, especially in Los Angeles …show more content…
At the UCR, the vanpool program is open to UC faculty and staff, and currently enrolled UC Riverside students as an “alternative form of transportation” (UCR). Faculty and students that are part of the program fill out an application so the university can provide users with sufficient information about the vanpool routes and meet the commuters every need. The vanpool program takes into account every user’s location and matches them into groups of commuters who live in close proximity of the universities departure sites. A designated driver picks them up from the departure site and drives them to the UCR campus. The faculty or student can request their preferred departure time from UCR campus to the same location they were initially picked up from by stating it in the programs online site. With the vanpool system the program’s objective is to decrease the number of single occupants in a vehicle made by staff or students to the UCR campus. The program helps contribute to the decrease of traffic congestion that benefits everyone in the long
When construction takes place, it is usually way before it is actually needed. Of course it is helping prevent dangerous and fatal occurrences but for the most part some of these changes can wait. Instead of spending so much money on our transportation category we should be putting more into education. “The money that the Federal Budget gives for education covers college aid loans, special education programs, free lunch to students in need, anti-discrimination efforts, research, and special programs” (Document D). Education is one of the most important things a person can have. ”
Since the beginning of the United States the American people have been on the move. Public transportation has played a major role in the development of this nation and in bringing its citizens together. In the book “Divided Highways”, author Tom Lewis takes the reader on a journey of the building of the Interstates and the consequences(good and bad) that came from them. Lewis believes that the Interstates are a physical characteristic of America and that it shows “all our glory and our meanness; all our vision and our shortsightedness”(xiv).
under funded public transit and urban sprawl contribute to the need to take on this burden?
The city of Virginia recently put a tax on the Elizabeth River Tunnel. The tunnel connects Norfolk and Portsmouth and didn’t develop tolls until February 2014 (Kelly 2014). This new toll forces residents, commuters, and visitors to pay a tax starting from one dollar to four dollars. The recent tunnel tolls added to the mid-town and downtown tunnels in Hampton roads are causing commuters and citizens to make some drastic lifestyle changes. Students and employees are considering changes to their employment and the universities they attend to save time and money as a result of the cost of commuting. If the average toll is two dollars a day, then people are spending about 60 dollars a month. What was once a relatively easy trip for many has become costly in both time and money. Because the addition of the tolls have divided the population into those who agree, and those who disagree; the media has played a large role in promoting the argument against the addition of the tolls. The 60 dollars people spend every month can go towards more than a toll; especially if a person is having very hard times. The tunnel tolls have caus...
injuries and fatalities” (PHGR). “One of the cardinal features of sprawl is driving, reflecting a
These include encouraging commuters to use public transport, decongesting public transport, decentralizing businesses from the Greater Toronto Area, investing in transport infrastructure, passing relevant transport legislation and dialog with stakeholders in transport industry. These solutions aim at discouraging the use of private vehicles and increasing the effectiveness of public transport to increase the capacity and speeds needed to reduce congestion in Toronto. However, it is important to involve all relevant stakeholders when developing solutions to the transport congestion since as earlier discussed, these people may offer very effective solutions to this problem since they are the major road users. The general public will also be keen to follow changes made to improve the transport sector if it is involved in the change process. This will ensure that Toronto has one of the best transport systems not only in North America but across the
With the introduction of the automobile in the early 1900s, laws have been instituted to protect drivers on the road. With these laws come lawbreakers who put their agenda in front of the well being of others. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost. billions of dollars have been spent, and pollution has grown exponentially because of this. drivers travelling at high speeds on roads (Hartman).
The most noticeable inconvenience of driving in Miami is traffic congestion. In fact, because the highways are cluttered with a significant amount of vehicles carpooling is encouraged. For this purpose, high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes were formed. Each weekday, a simple twenty-minute drive turns into an eternal wait for forward progress. With each minute that goes by cars advance less than twenty feet. And while the traffic may open up in some areas, in its entirety I-95 remains congested during the morning and evening hours, as seen in the image where cars on the South Florida Highways line up bumper-to-bumper. The cause for such highway clutter varies, but it is interesting to note the difficulty in explaining highway driving conditions. It is uncertain as to whether the accidents cause traffic congestion or the traffic congestion causes accidents. Either way, the main roads and highways commuters take to work are crowded with drivers. Furthermore, I-95 passes through several commercial districts in the lower Miami area. Many large trucks and commercial vehicles, as well as passenger vehicles, drive to work at these commercial areas. The weekday traffic congestions on the Miami roadways are, in large part, a major inconvenience to commuters, all with intent to arrive early to work.
Today’s society appears to be constantly on the go. People seem to be pulled in multiple directions at once. Individuals never appear to have enough time to complete tasks that continually accumulate. It can be difficult to criticize someone that tries to make the most out every minute. Unfortunately, some of today’s drivers show a lack of judgment and trying to perform other tasks, while behind the wheel. People may feel this is best use time while getting to a destination. Occasionally, the small amount of time that people are trying to gain results in a time consuming accident. With modern conveniences that are geared toward an on the go public, individuals appear to be too preoccupied to driving safely.
Traffic reduction stems primarily from a decision to drive (Engwight,1992), a
Some people argue that just as many car accidents would happen if the use of cell phones were not involved. According to Shows Cellphone Use, “Using a cellphone while driving may be distracting, but it does not lead to higher crash risks.” It is hard to miss the number of drivers with phones glued to their hands. As they dangerously multitask while driving around other vehicles and pedestrians. Those who decide to use their phones are simultaneously contributing to a lack of visual, manual, and cognitive attention a driver needs to remain focused (Injury Prevention, 2015). With the potential of crashing being 23 times greater than the risk posed by drunk driving (No Texting, 2015). With statistical information providing a connection between distracted drivers and increased accidents, it is hard to believe there are some who feel it is not
In college, attendance is crucial to students’ success. Being late to class can result in having less time to take a test or missing fundamental concepts that may be discussed in a classroom. Students must take responsibility by arriving on time; however, limited parking spaces and other transportation problems at many universities can cause students to be late which can result in poor academic performance. The University of Texas at San Antonio, one of most populous cities in Texas, has 29,000 enrolled students (UTSA . . .). During peak hours, one must be timely to find a parking space; many students find themselves driving in circles while hoping to find someone else leaving the campus and others wait for a shuttle bus that has a reputation of arriving late. Due to transportation problems, some students may feel unmotivated to study in the library or go to class regularly. Therefore, the University of Texas at San Antonio should improve student transportation because doing so could increase students’ academic performance.
Public transportation is an essential part of a city. A good public transit can encourage a city’s economic activities and can provide its citizen a convenient life. Does our Phoenix public transit work well? Does it provide sufficient service to the citizen? From my experience, the answer is no. This November I tried to attend the popular State Fair in Phoenix. However, I found that there were not any buses or metros could take me to the fair directly. It means I need 2 hours or more spend on the public transits. As the sixth most populous city nationwide (“Phoenix Quick Fact” 1), compared with Los Angeles and other big cities in America, Phoenix’s public transportation is indeed subpar. Due to Los Angeles has 154 bus lines and 30 metros (“Schedule”), New York has 316 bus lines and 28 subways(“Maps & Timetables”), while Phoenix only has 98 bus lines, and the number of metro line is only one! (“Route Schedules & Maps”) The problem is
Most people take the urban public transportation system for granted. It is used in every aspect of our daily lives: work, education, medical necessities, recreation, etc. It is also important for the transportation of goods and services, which aids the growth and maintenance of our economy. Urban public transportation is the critical component of our quality of life and economic stability. The MBTA, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, is Boston and Eastern Massachusetts’s major transportation service. The MBTA has played a central role in the development of Boston and surrounding cities and towns for more than a century; providing service from 175 cities and towns into Boston. On an average weekday over 1.2 million trips are made on the subway, buses, commuter lines and other services in the mass transit system. With an international airport, a ship port, the highways, and the rail lines to connect regional cities and towns to national and international destinations and markets, Boston’s urban public transportation system has made the region’s growing role in the global economy possible.
“The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we all believe that we are above-average drivers” -Dave Barry, comedian. The number of accidents over the last ten years have drastically increased, drivers are paying less attention to the road itself. Many individuals behind the wheel of a car believe that their driving does not affect the road conditions, however it always will. The driving habits of today are catastrophic due to the reasoning that the driving will affect other lives through reckless or distracted driving, and disobeying traffic laws.