Increasing the price of petrol is the best way to solve growing traffic and pollution problems. To what extent do you agree or disagree? What other measures do you think might be effective?

Increasing the price of petrol is the best way to solve growing traffic and pollution problems. To what extent do you agree or disagree? What other measures do you think might be effective?

With the development of society and increase of population, more and more countries suffer from traffic jams and air pollution. Some people propose that we can address the issue efficiently regards to the transportation and environmental disruption via raising the petrol.

Rise prices generally affect the demand of people. For one thing, as for ordinary people, most of them tend to choose less dependent products of gas. For instance, they would rather use electrical or solar products, which are more environmentally-friendly, to maintain their daily life. It implies the demand of petrol will probably decrease, which may benefit to environment. For another, citizens are likely to use public transportation other than private cars to travel and work for the sake of reducing the cost of living. By means of that traffic pressure will be relieved to a great extent.

The price increase will also bring some negative effects. The low-income group may be the most influential one due to the rise of gas. A series of other commodity rises triggered by the rise in petrol, such as food, clothes and so on.  On the contrary, high-earning people are able to sustain the result form increase. But for a country, the high-income group accounts for the majority and the low-income group for the minority, which result in widening the gap between the rich and the poor. The increase of poverty and criminal rate leads to social instability.

The solution to traffic jams and pollution issue are in various. Firstly, the government can do some publicity work; encouraging people choose public transportation rather than private cars. Secondly, odd-and-even license plate rule should be implemented to reduce the number of cars. Reasonable urban traffic planning and the development of environmental protection energy may contribute to address the problems.

The rise of petrol may help to solve them along with advent effects regarding traffic congestion and air pollution. In my opinion, it is necessary to evaluate whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages or the disadvantages outweigh the advantages of this method, before we carry out the method.