Should governments spend more money on building roads or on improving public transportation?
The amount of money involved in the upkeep of major roads, particularly motorways, can be quite phenomenal. A great many motorways were built at a time when there was much less traffic on the road than there is nowadays. As the volume of traffic has increased, so has the wear-and-tear on the roads.
It is obvious that existing major roads have to be kept in good condition and so require governmental spending. However, should governments spend money on new roads?
Many motorists would undoubtedly say yes. They would point out that they are tired of the road congestion on motorways. However, are more and more new motorways the answer to a country’s traffic problems?
Motorways are extremely expensive to construct and are a great drain on a nation’s economy, taking resources away from such crucial areas as health and education. Furthermore, motorways are often very wasteful in terms of land use and, worse, are sometimes detrimental to the environment.
Governments cannot always choose the entire site of a proposed new motorway. They can announce that it is to go from point A to point B, but they cannot dictate the whole route. The motorway construction engineers, on the grounds of cost or practicality, may route the motorway through valuable farmland and this will have a deleterious effect on the economy of the area.
They may also route the motorway through an area of natural beauty. This will, undoubtedly, have a detrimental effect on the wildlife whose habitat is located there, and possibly endanger the very existence of the various animals and plants. It could also have a bad effect on the economy of the area by removing a scenic area to which tourists were once attracted.
There is another, even more important, environmental issue with regard to motorways and other major roads. A network of fast roads undoubtedly encourages more people to undertake their journey by car. Obviously, this results in there being more cars on the roads, which is very bad for the environment. It is an established scientific fact that emissions from engines pollute the atmosphere.
Governments in general do not like to upset motorists. Many countries impose quite high taxes on road use and fuel and so the revenue from motorists is high. However, it is about time governments started taking other issues into consideration. They are never going to be able to build enough motorways to meet the seemingly insatiable demands of motorists. Every time a new motorway or stretch of motorway is opened, it seems that it is instantly filled with traffic.
It would be much less expensive, and less detrimental to the environment, to spend money on public transport, such as buses and trains. Buses use roads, as cars do, but they transport many people at a time, while a great many cars transport only one person.
Trains not only transport many people at once, but they do so in a way that is much more regulated. It is much easier to control rail traffic than road traffic. Admittedly, from time to time there are bad rail accidents, but rail fatalities are far less common than road fatalities.
For various reasons, governments cannot continue to build more and more roads. It is time that they put more of their resources into public transport.
