Past GT essay - Now, more and more people want to buy cars. However, cars cause many problems. What are these problems? How can we encourage people to take public transportation?

Someone has rightly said that – “The car has become an article of dress without which we feel uncertain, unclad, and incomplete”.  It is irrefutable that many individuals prefer to own their own car rather than use buses and trains. In this essay, I shall discuss the disadvantages of cars and also suggest ways by which the people can be motivated to use public transport.

There are many disadvantages of the car. The increase in pollution, traffic jams and accidents are the natural sequel to the burgeoning population of cars. Moreover, our overdependence on cars can lead to decrease in practices such as walking and cycling and this has led to a number of diseases such as obesity.

To reduce these problems, the government can encourage people to use public transport. This can be done in many ways. Firstly, the comfort of the public transport could be made better. Secondly, the fares could be reduced and the frequency of public transport should be increased. Definitely, if all these improvements are made in buses and trains, then people would prefer them over cars in many situations.

Another way to stimulate public transport use is to make private car use more expensive and inconvenient. The introduction of tolls along urban motorways has been successfully employed in many cities. Other such measures such as high parking rates in urban areas also could help a lot. Faced with high costs or no place to park, people would perhaps be more willing to abandon their cars in favour of buses or trains.

To conclude, it could be said that there is no doubt that the private vehicle is gaining a lot of popularity but this is leading to a lot of problems. If the government takes some steps to encourage public transport then definitely the problems caused by the increased use of cars could be minimized.