Causes And Effects Of Traffic Congestion Tourism Essay

Causes And Effects Of Traffic Congestion Tourism Essay Jain, Sharma and Subramanian mentioned that congestion in the United States has increased dramatically since the last twenty-five years, which is the same as many countries that suffering from traffic congestion currently. From the authors prospective, one of the major causes of traffic jam in the most cities is poor road traffic management system. Increasing of traffic congestion every year is causing increasing of air pollution, wasting of time and productivity and causes diverse diseases such as, respiratory diseases. Moreover, the cost of solving or reducing traffic congestion is enormous. However, neglecting the traffic jam problem would increase the social problems among citizens. The next part of this essay illustrates many causes of traffic congestion in different cities around the world, and the effects of these causes on the environment. Furthermore, the solutions that solved the traffic jam problem, and the suggested solutions that could help to reduce the congestion in some cities. Causes and Effects This part of the essay demonstrates many causes, effects and possible solutions of traffic congestion problems. 1. Los Angeles (USA). Causes and Effects: One of the main causes of traffic congestion in Los Angeles (United States of America) is car culture, which means many people in the city or county owned private cars (Thisdell, 1993). Additionally, the land-use pattern is an important reason that makes people in Los Angeles were using private cars widely and made transport planning difficult. Furthermore, traffic congestion increased due to no underground railway and public transport in Los Angeles. Moreover, the high numbers of vehicles, which are a result of overpopulation and the economic growth, and the weak of public transportation, have a negative effect on the environment such as air pollution, which happened on Saturday when commuter traffic is insignificant. Sorensen (2009) illustrated many reasons that make Los Angeles have traffic congestion such as Common misconceptions and high regional population density. As an example of common misconceptions, people in Los Angeles love cars driving, which means the relation between people and their cars is very strong and described as loves relation. As an example of high regional population density is drivers were not consider roads as a problem of traffic congestion. Sorensen said that high population and some of the other factors that aforementioned could also make the traffic jam worse. Solutions: Thisdell (1993) mentioned that Los Angeles County transportation committee said creates more roads for cars will not solve traffic congestion problems, with increasing numbers of people and vehicles. Also, traditional public transport such as buses will be more effective in limited areas only. The committee suggested that Metro system, which is a complete project of public transport including underground railways, buses and developing motorways. It is clear that, the system has many advantages such as reducing time loss, increase productivity and cut pollution. However, the cost of making just the first part of Metro project was $1.35 billion. In addition, there are some threats to human life such as, gas and earthquakes. Sorensen (2009) mentioned about some short strategies that can solve traffic problem in Los Angeles such as, encouraging people to use ride-sharing and bicycles, improve the system of controlling the traffic light and make it more efficient, which are inexpensive so lutions but very effective and eco-friendly. The other solution is Peak -hour road pricing which make people pay some money to drive on specific roads at specific period of the day Downs (2004). This solution makes roads expensive and avoids traffic congestion at peak hours. 2. Dhaka (Bangladesh). Causes and Effects: The second cause that makes traffic congestion is lack of planning of city roads. According to Mahmud et al. (2012), Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, is one of the most densely populated cities in the whole world. The population exceeded twelve million and still increasing daily; making the traffic jams a big issue for Dhaka government. According to their survey, many reasons cause this congestion such as, huge number of people live in the city and owned their cars and traffic rule violation. In addition, the roads are narrow, lack of Planning of the citys roads and bad traffic signalling. It is clear from the survey that the citys roads are the most problems that causing traffic congestion. Due to traffic jam, there are many impacts on the economy, peoples health and the environment. The economic impact describes as people losing some working hours, cars consumed more fuel and vehicle maintenance cost. Furthermore, people in Dhaka are suffering from inconvenience, breathing and eye pro blems which caused by pollution. Additionally, environmental problems such as, air and sound pollution are threatening peoples lives. Dey et al, (2002) mentioned that 86% of the general people who live in Dhaka considered noise pollution are a big issue for them. For instance, a high percentage of students said they studied in a noisy environment. Solutions: Many solutions considered for solving Dhaka traffic congestion. According to Mahmud et al. (2012) survey, three different points to curb traffic jam were mentioned as follows: the first point is considered residents point of view [figure1], which including suggestions such as, increasing peoples awareness about traffic causes and their impact on the environment. In addition to that, 16% of people think that improving public transport is an important solution that can reduce the cost and time for them. As well as, scheduling different times to commence schools and government offices to avoid a traffic jam on the roads. The second point is vehicles considerations [figure2], which mean vehicle operators, could help to reduce traffic congestion. It is clear from [figure2] that, 41% of operators considered making strict rules of the roads, that every driver should follow these rules, as an effective solution to curb traffic jam. Moreover, 16% of the operators suggested decentralization solution, which means distribute the main offices and shopping cen tres far from city centre to avoid a huge traffic on the road going there .The third point takes the experts point of view, which were classified into three parts. The first part is the short-term solution (5 years) that can reduce roads jam temporarily as improving traffic light systems and increase the parking prices. The second part is the medium-term solution (5-10 years), such as improving the railways and makes it more efficient. The third part is the long-term solution (