We are witnessing traffic jams across all the cities in the world. Some people say that increasing prices of petrol will help in reducing traffic jams and pollution. Do you agree or disagree? Also, give other possible solutions.

Traffic jams are becoming one of the most severe urban problems for the authorities most cities around the world leading to many other difficulties such as road rage, increased stress levels and so on. To address this issue, an argument is put forward by some short sighted people that increasing the prices of oil can be a solution in the regard.

Raising the cost of petrol cannot be an appropriate answer to the problem of traffic jams for many reasons. First, majority of cities face traffic jams because of car users as middle and lower class people prefer to commute only by public transport. Now, the rich people are not affected by the higher fuel price because they can afford it. Therefore, car usage shall not see a decline. Second, higher petrol costs puts a great burden on the economy of developing countries that import oil. The increase, the gap between rich and poor countries, which can be a cause of innumerable problems.

Third, owing to higher fuel price, landing cost of essential items like fruits and vegetables will also increase, which will contribute in higher inflation levels across the world. Finally, there are other effective ways to help the problem of traffic jams such as inspiring people to use public transport, developing infrastructure of the cities, introducing better traffic management systems and so on.

On the other hand, some people argue that raising petrol prices will affect the spending capacity of the commuters. This will oblige them to reduce usage of private vehicles and depend more on public transport. They add that earned money can be used for other meaningful causes like welfare, infrastructure, education, healthcare and so on.

Finally, the argument about raising petrol prices apparently has some credibility. However, considering the negative effects of it, I firmly believe that it is not an ideal solution to reduce traffic problems.