IELTS Essay:

Topic: One way to stop the problem of congestion on the roads is to increase the tax on the private vehicles.

How could this alleviate congestion? What other measures can you suggest to deal with the congestion in cities?

Give reasons for your answers and provide relevant example and experience you might have.

Sample Answer:
One way to eradicate the issue of crowding on the roads is to mushrooming the tax on the private vehicles. However, it can plunge the overcrowding to greater extent but as a result it will lead to many other problems. With time, more population is surging in cities and consequently more traffic on the roads is becoming a common scenario.

Firstly, extending tax will have adverse effect on the middle class people because they have brought their personal cars with many hurdles and if the tax is increased, they cannot bear tax imposed by the government. As a result, they will stop using cars and will use private transportation instead. People who are planning to buy a new car with give it a second thought because of the increased tax. Apart from this, the tax amount could be used by the authority to built more roads, improve pavements and parking facilities and thus the traffic jams in roads will be reduced. However, this will not deter the rich people to use their private cars on the roads.

There are ample of alternatives for alleviating the congestion. Initially, the structure of roads should be the first priority for decreasing the overcrowding on the roads. In other words, there should be distinct sections on the roads for the fast transports namely cars, buses and trucks and for the pedestrians and slow vehicles such as motor cycles, scooters as well. To give a clear example, in Sweden, the roads are divided in different lanes which reduced the congestion as well as fatal accidents which reduced the number of road accidents to only 264 in the year 2014 from more than thousands in previous years. The plan was code named “vision zero” by the Sweden Government and indeed that was an effective measure.

Secondly, the traffic signal and controlling system in developing nations as well as developed nation should be improved. The traffic lights should be installed which itself change according to the density of the traffic. For instance, the road which has more traffic should get more time to be cleared as compared to other roads. By this way it will reduce the congestion on the roads. Moreover, u-turn should be prohibited on the grand trunk roads. It is found that till now most of the traffic jams are caused by u-turns especially the u-turn of heavy transports is responsible for road congestion and that should be prohibited completely. Traffic rules should be followed by every citizen and any violation of traffic rule should be severely punished.

To encapsulate, congestion problem can be comfortably solved if appropriate precautions are taken and the government has to take their responsibility for controlling the redundant traffic by constructing roads and installing the modern traffic lights. Above all the public should also take the road signs seriously and follow it.

[ Written by – Harpreet Singh]