Band 7+: More and More city workers are deciding to live in the countryside and travel to work everyday. The result is increased traffic congestions and damage to the environment. What measures do you think could be taken to encourage people not to travel such long distances into work?

The surge of people who have decided to move out of the city and live in the countryside has been very concerning lately. This is because along with it came several harmful impacts, including the increase in traffic in and out of town and damages to the environment around the traffic. The cause of this issue should be properly resolved as soon as possible, as further postponing it could worsen the condition in status quo.

One solution is to push the incentive for people to take public transport. The reason why most congestion occurs is due to the difficulty to access mass transits which leads to people taking their own vehicles out onto the road. The state has to increase the amount of public transport that is available through many aspects. Increasing the number of vehicles, stations, and schedules along with cheaper tickets subsidized by the government have proved extremely successful. The substantial proportion of city workers in Jakarta and Tokyo, two busy major cities with a well-developed public transport scheme in the world, who took buses and trains everyday exemplifies the success of this measure very well. It reduces not only the rate of traffic, but also the amount of carbon footprint released into the atmosphere, thus making it also environmentally friendly.

Another distinctly different method is to push business development outwards from the city. The common issue with large cities, especially metropolitans, is that progression has always been centralized in the city itself. This brings about multiple harms, including the significant occurrence of congestion and pollution in the city. To solve this, progress in the countryside should be incentivized. This could be achieved in many ways. For instance, infrastructures can be decentralized into the countryside, therefore making offices and jobs more spread out. This can provide city workers with several routes to take through the suburbs and help the environment as a whole by significantly reducing pollution in the urban area.

In conclusion, the rising trend of people moving to the suburbs that has increased the tendency for congestions and environmental harms to occur can be solved through several measures, including but not limited to increasing accessibility to mass transports and decentralizing developments out from the city.