In order to promote public transportation as an endeavor to facilitate sustainable development, investigating in public transport sector is imperative. Railways are essential to advance rail transport as a public travel option, which is characterized by lower greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions rate than private vehicles and many other road transport modes. Besides, such public transport modes offer other socio-economic benefits including traffic jam reduction, greater accessibility to low income groups, minimizing government expenditure for road network construction and maintenance, decreasing road accidents. Thus, government investment in rail lines are crucial but to a certain extent. Moreover, the government’s investment must be determined based on the market demand, accordance with national and regional development plans, environmental implications, and socio-economic dynamics. Therefore, I do not support a mere opinion or statement such that governments should spend money on railways rather than roads. Rather, I support the idea that governments should invest more in public transport sector considering social equity, environmental viability, and economic feasibility. So, governments can spend on roads when it is more reasonable.
It is widely discussed and accepted that the public infrastructure in most countries worldwide is poor, which limits the wider adoption of public transport modes including trams, rails, BRT etc. On the contrary, better road facilities and traditionally, greater investment in this sector enkindle the usage of private cars more. But, researches show that private cars, motor-three-wheelers emit more GHGs than public modes like trains, BRT etc. Thus, scholar suggest governments to invest more in public transportation sector while limiting in road sector. The main purpose is to promote more environment friendly modes so that the amount of GHGs can be abated as much as possible. Besides, energy consumption, traffic jam, road accident etc. may be reduced in this way.
However, investing in road infrastructure for BRT, electric and hydrogen fueled vehicles, active modes like bicycle, three-wheelers etc. is crucial too as these are emerging alternatives to abate fossil fuel energy consumption, GHGs emission, volume of motor vehicles. Besides, investing in rail infrastructure that operates based on fossil fuel and traditional technologies is less reasonable than spending on emerging road transport sectors such as air bus, electric and hydrogen fueled vehicles, magnetic trains, bicycling etc. as these modes have less environmental impacts but higher socio-economic advantages.
Therefore, I suggest that governments should invest more on sectors that are more environment-friendly, socio-economically feasible, and that promotes transport sustainability.