YALS 2010 literary competition winners
B2
People should be encouraged to use public transport more
by Nikola Novković, Lingva
We are at the dawn of the Information age, which sees a development in many public services and systems, transportation included. With pollution, global warming and economic crisis being the biggest concerns, common sense leads to conclusion that public transport is the best solution. But, with 800 million cars on the roads and rising, that is not quite the case.
First of all, public transport is eco-friendly. For example, one bus that carries thirty people leaves a smaller carbon footprint than thirty cars which those people could have used instead. Along with the pollution, this also reduces the cost of transport, making it available to wider masses.
With the development of public transport number of related jobs would also rise. This means that there would be more experienced drivers on the roads, cutting down the number of accidents, which take over 1.2 million lives every year. Traffic jams would also reduce, allowing people to get to their destinations faster.
One the other side, depriving people of the pleasure that is driving would not meat good reception. That would also make people dependent on the public transportation system too much which would prove catastrophic in case of an accident or delay.
Usefulness of public transport is already proven in modern countries like Japan or Germany, where they save sums of money and resources by investing in public, instead of private transport.
All in all, public transport has a bright future ahead of it.