It is often perceived that the only solution for traffic is through eliminating the need for people to travel for their jobs, schools or universities, and leisure activities. In my view, as opposed to restriction on mobilities, facilitating proper public transportation will create more detrimental effects to such problems.
To begin with, one of the supporting arguments to limit people from travelling is that most people use their personal vehicles ,especially during peak hours, resulting in a higher volume of cars and motorcycles at a certain time. That is why reducing their need to go to other places might result in reducing the amount of traffic, as they will most likely stay at their home as opposed to being in the street. For example, companies allow their employee to work from home during the global pandemic, resulting in a slight decline in traffic. However, I would argue that such an approach is not sustainable as people still need to reach their destination on a daily basis. For instance, critical professionals such as doctors and engineers are required to visit hospitals and construction sites, which means that it is not possible to impose work from home for these specific jobs.
Therefore, in my view, the solution to traffic involves adequate policy to continuously upgrade the system of public transportation. This is important since it will encourage people to use the train or MRT compared to private cars. To illustrate, in Jakarta, after the launching of MRT, residents in Jakarta prefer to use them because it is more convenient, efficient, and cheaper when compares to other types of transportation. Furthermore, although it might take a longer time to completely address the traffic in a big city, proper public transportation will significantly help the join efforts to reduce the before mentioned issues.
In conclusion, while restrictions to limit people’s mobility can reduce traffic at some levels, I remain convinced that they failed to touch the root problems. Consequently, the government ought to impose some regulations to ensure that society can take public transportation comfortably.