In order to solve traffic problems, governments should tax private car owners heavily and use the money to improve public transportation. What are the advantages and disadvantages of such a solution? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own experience or knowledge.

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Road congestion has been a major problem that every authority is facing,
thus
the idea to impose a heavy levy on private car owners and allocate the money to improve public transport.
Although
the idea can discourage people to buy their own and use trains and buses
instead
, it is
also
creating a bigger expectation and burden towards public transportation. In my opinion, governments are far better of having citizens use their facilities
as a result
of enforcing the heavy levy. The main intention to tax privately owned vehicles is to discourage the public to own one for themselves
hence
it means less volume of cars on the road. The need to pay extra cost on top of the initial vehicle price has often put a stop to family to plan to have one,
instead
, they will commute using public transit as the alternative.
For example
, a country like Singapore has been implementing
such
a rule,
as a result
, most of their citizen are using public trains and buses to do their daily commute. Enforcing heavy tax on privately-owned vehicles can be looked to stop people planning to have it,
therefore
, they will travel with public transportation.
On the other hand
, the effect of heavy taxing, the community will depend on public transport and it means they expect a high quality of it too. Since the expected outcome for most people to use government facility to travel around daily, they will expect higher quality in terms of services, cheaper fee, and better trains and bus.
For instance
, Singapore has been maintaining their public transport to have a top-level service,
however
, there was a time their train had an issue and stop working in the middle of rush hour for 2 hours. It had caused major disruption and had been very costly for the government facility's image. The disadvantage of the idea to impose heavy taxing can put a heavy burden and high expectation towards the quality of the transportation. In summary, imposing the tax is looked to solve traffic problems. While it is no doubt there will be heavy pressure for the government to provide the best facility for their citizen to do the daily commute, it is, in fact, is the expected result from mobilizing them to using public transit. I believe
this
is a good solution for a problem related to heavy road usage.
Submitted by theomarshal on

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Topic Vocabulary:
  • Traffic congestion
  • Emissions
  • Revenue generation
  • Public dissatisfaction
  • Political issues
  • Financial burden
  • Environmental benefits
  • Efficiency and accessibility
  • Taxation
  • Heavily taxing
  • Private car owners
  • Fund improvements
  • Discourage the use
  • Healthier environment
  • Public transport quality
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