Semester Essay #7: Public Transportation in Cities

Many cities suffer from serious air and noise pollution—as well as endless traffic jams—because of too many cars. Some people feel that cities with extensive public transportation systems should ban passenger cars and force people to walk, bike, or use public transportation. Do you think this is a good idea? Why or why not?

The idea of a “city” has been known to be a place where people and other living organisms suffer from serious air and noise pollution. The city is not entirely bad; it is a location where people can visit and enjoy the structures of famous buildings, view the great scenery from a certain vantage point, eat the best-known foods, and watch the greatest entertainments in that particular city. Some people feel that extensive public transportation systems, such as buses and cars, should be banned. They think everyone should be forced to walk, bike, or use not so much of the public transportation. This sounds like a good idea but that doesn’t mean it is the best idea to look forward to.

No individual should or have the right to force anyone to make their daily travels in a certain type of transportation. There are people who have jobs much farther away than where they live. Therefore, travelling by walking or biking is not a great idea. If everyone uses public transportation, then it would mean more production of buses and trains in order to prevent from carrying overcrowded people in one station.

Some people cannot afford a car depending on how much money they earn from the jobs in which they work in. So, their only way to travel is by bus and/or walk, if convenient. Everyone cannot go back to simpler transportation if these types of transportation were made so that people can travel somewhere much faster without waking up extra early to travel a long distance. There is technology to help create greener transportation without completely destroying the invention. There are hybrid cars which do not fuel off of so much gas. Inventors can later create a much greener public transportation just like hybrids that will not pollute the air we breathe.

We do not need to reverse ourselves to other inventions that get us around to places but not fast enough. A better solution for this problem would be to remodel the trains, buses, and cars to become environmentally friendly. As long as everyone reduces, reuses, and recycles common material, such as paper and plastic, we can decrease the amount of pollution we create by a larger percentage. Cities will become a lot cleaner and mostly noise free if we tweak our public transportation system without eliminating them completely and let nature do its course. The strong winds can even clear the smog covering the beautiful city of Los Angeles with the mountains as its backdrop.