The following appeared as part of a mayor's proposal to the city council:
Traffic in the central city is the number one complaint of our residents, so I urge you to consider this solution. We should invest in doubling our bus service and adding a light rail system, giving more options to those who don't want to drive through the city. Furthermore, we should make public transportation more accessible by reducing the fees to ride. With less traffic people will be more productive, and with higher productivity comes higher revenue and more taxes, so the system will likely pay for itself.
The mayor makes a decent proposal to the city council regarding the changes to be made in the city to deal with the traffic problems. He proposes that bus service needs to be doubled and light rail system can be added thereby giving more options to the public. He also proposes to reduce the fees and also opines that system will likely pay for itself. The argument is filled with hidden assumptions and flaws as below.
Primarily, Mayor presents traffic is the number one compliant of residents and presents his measures to control the same. But there can be plenty of other issues such as narrow roads and improper streets which can the main issues behind the traffic scenario.Hence mayor needs to consider whether there are any other interlinked reasons behind the traffic congestion.
Moreover, Doubling bus service and adding light rail system also involve a lot of factors such as Income for investment, Planning of bus route, available spaces for bus stands or depots, technology and planning involving separate route for rail system. Also one needs to check whether the most of people who travel on roads can reach their destinations if they opt for new transport systems in appropriate timings.
Furthermore, fee reduction may help people with less income. But one cannot guarantee the proposal success by mere fee reduction. After investing so much in buses and other transport systems, city council should be able to afford the fee reduction. And even if fees are reduced, People who would like to drive by their own vehicle may not opt for these public transport and they may constitute a large portion of people whose vehicles cause traffic congestion on roads.
Mayor incorrectly opines that reducing traffic results in productivity and revenue. Reducing traffic is definitely welcome change for citizens to improve living standards of people but productivity improvements depends on other factors and higher revenues also depends on demand and supply along with market conditions. Mayor exaggerates his assumptions and assumes that system will likely pay for itself.
The argument as is does not make any sense and indicates improper planning. All necessary information needs to be collected wither through public surveys or technical experts who help analyse the situation and then proposal needs to be reconsidered. Finance experts, council members and necessary people needs to form a team to deal with the whole scenario.
