Public Transport Should Be Free

Public transport should be free A1: Crowded roads are extremely bad for everyone For every full bus there is on the road, there aren’t 30-40 cars congesting our roads further. For every train on the tracks, there are from 400 (50 people per car with eight cars total) to 2000 (NYC train during peak-hour). Crowding roads with cars leads to all kinds of negative things, all a result of inefficiency. According to Drive. com, Sydney drivers spend 92 hours extra behind the wheel of a daily commute, due to peak-hour traffic [1]. This is time wasted, and could be spent better elsewhere. Even if it isn’t possible for everyone to use public transport, just increasing its usage by a small amount, would create a positive difference. There are also health hazards which come with crowded roads. According to Wall Street Journals, “as roadways choke on traffic, researchers suspect that the tailpipe exhaust from cars and trucks—especially tiny carbon particles already implicated in heart disease, cancer and respiratory ailments—may also injure brain cells and synapses key to learning and memory” [2]. Polluting our atmospheres, in such a concentrated way that traffic jams bring, should be avoided. A2: Having more people use public transport creates jobs Let’s assume that we make public transport free: 1) On average, people will use public transport more 2) This creates a demand, in which the supply needs to match (seeing as the government needs to cater to the needs of the people) C) Therefore, more public transport jobs will become required (which include not only driving the vehicles, but producing them too) Creating jobs is a very important aspect of any strong economy [3][4][5]. To put it briefly, because this seems like a relatively obvious point, jobs: 1) Are the primary income source for households, thus they are what help households to continue the cash flow in the economy 2) Brings jobless people into the economy, who would otherwise be a drain (if on welfare), or economically worthless (if living on the streets) A3: The environment will be helped I’ve already hinted at the fact that air quality significantly lowers when heavy traffic is present, and now I’m going to irrefutably demonstrate it. 60% of transport pollution comes from cars and light trucks [11]. This is because on average, a car in a year will produce 6 tonnes of global warming emissions [12]. Obviously, having a lot of cars on the road is contributing a brutal amount of global warming emissions. Emissions from fossil fuels include” NOx (diesel engines) [6], volatile organic compounds (these are not only dangerous for humans, but are harmful to plants to, for example these can disrupt plant communication) [7], Carbon monoxide (toxic to humans and animals when encountered in high concentrations) [8] and other dangerous air pollutants. Obviously, these air pollutants could easily wreck ecosystems, plants and animals, simply because being near these toxic things is not possible. Noise from motor-vehicles is another factor to consider. Having a dense amount of traffic, or at least more traffic than what could be, leads to more noise from roads than necessary. Noisy traffic jams are annoying to listen to, and can scare wildlife away. Water pollution is another consideration. By having more cars on the road, there will be more urban runoff; rainwater running off roads can pick up oils on the road [9]. If the rainwater drainage system completes its piping at the ocean, this will mean that the ocean is being pumped with oils, which are dangerous to sea-life. Since maintaining the environment is important to human existence (think plants providing oxygen, and humans needing water), we should be looking to help preserve the environment as best we can. A4: Save time and materials on ticket processing Time spent on purchasing and affirming valid tickets will be non-existent, under the free public transport system. This should help keep the public transport system maintain a smooth continuation, and also save the hassle of affirming authentic tickets. Also, the materials required to produce a ticket will be saved. This includes not only the cardboard/paper used, but also the machinery used to produce such a ticket. Another benefit is that transit officers could focus their attention more on the maintenance of the networks, rather than having to worry about ticket acquisition. A5: Save money on road construction and maintenance The total amount of funding for road-related expenditure by the Australian, state, territory and local Governments in 2008–09 was $15.8 billion [10]. Clearly, by having far less cars on the road, road maintenance will come down sharply. By having less cars on the road, there won’t be as high of a demand to build new roads. This will significantly lessen the loss made by relaxing public transport tickets. Counter-responses “Public Transport should be safe, reliable, efficient and affordable for everyone. ” I agree, that’s why I’m arguing that public transport should be free. “Stepping onto a bus and finding it full of people, is something nobody likes. ” This indicates that there aren’t enough buses on the roads, not that public transport shouldn’t be free. This isn’t very relevant to this debate. “Imagine how crowded a bus would be if all public transport was free. ” Yeah, we’ll have to, because all you’ve posted here is a bare assertion. “This is something which cannot be helped but if more and more people took public transport to places then more transport would get overcrowded. ” More buses! “If transport is overcrowded, the government would have to provide the pubic with more transportation services which means. Building the transport, hiring drivers and filling up the petrol. ” Which is good for the economy, as I have argued. “If the government does not have enough money then they increase the tax. ” A slight increase in taxation is well worth uncongesting roads and helping the environment. “This is unfair because those who have a job and do not use public transport have to pay the tax. But those who take public transport and don"t have a job do not have to pay tax. ” We live in a society. Plenty of people pay tax for the fire-fighters services to serve other people. Is that unfair? What if I never have to ring 911 in my life for a fire-engine? When we live in a society, we should pay taxes for things that benefit the majority. Maybe, if you were really worried about the small increase in tax, you could have a system that exempted people who never use public transport from paying for that subsidisation. “People may misuse the privilege of free transport. An example is that if they do not have anything to do they could take public transport just for fun. ” My opponent has failed to provide evidence that this will be a problem. “But that"s not all, overcrowding could also lead to danger. If there is too many people on a bus and they bus turns, people could stumble into each other and someone could get injured. ” If there aren’t many people on a bus, and it turns, there is greater space for people to accelerate in falling, thus people are, on average, going to be more hurt in falling on an empty bus than a crowded one. Conclusion: 1. Crowding roads is not a good idea 2. Public transport helps greatly to avoid the crowding of roads 3. The cost of maintaining free public transport may be an issue 4. The job creation and money saved in making public transport free will help offset this 5. Despite all this, losing the environment is something that we can’t afford, and crowded roads all helping contribute to this greatly C. Therefore, for what will be a small increase in taxation, we can help keep our roads unconjested, create jobs and help maintain the ever valuable environment. I wish to thank tanya10909 for what was a brief debate. Hopefully, I’ve been able to convince you that public transport should be free :) References: [1] . http://www.drive.com.au... [2] . http://online.wsj.com... [3] . http://investorplace.com... [4] . http://www.gallup.com... [5] . http://www.econosseur.com... [6] "How nitrogen oxides affect the way we live and breathe". Environmental protection agency. [7] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [8] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [9] United States. National Research Council. Washington, DC. "Urban Stormwater Management in the United States. " October 15, 2008. pp. 5, 110. [10] . https://www.bitre.gov.au... [11] . http://www.ucsusa.org... [12] . http://www.ucsusa.org...