Kanagarethinam 1 Pavethren S/O Kanagarethinam B4 Geography Mrs Yeo and Ms Seow.

Choose any one of the urban problems and examine ways in which cities have attempted to address these problems.

Rapid urban growth has resulted in many urban problems which cities that undergo rapid urban growth face. Rapid urban growth is defined as the rapid rate at which the population of an urban area increases. This may result from rural urban migration. Due to the rapid increase in the populations, many urban problems such as traffic congestion, housing, sanitation, and many others tend to occur.

I want to bring about the issue of traffic congestion in cities due to rapid urban growths. Traffic congestion occurs when there are too many cars on the roads at a certain period of time and this results in vehicles having to move at very slow speeds. This causes the times taken to make trips way longer. The cities I will be using as case studies to show different traffic control strategies are Paris, Bangkok, and New York.

The first solution adopted by Paris to control its traffic on the Lille-Paris motorway is the simple strategy of setting up toll charges on the motorway. These rates can vary with the time or the traffic volume in the motorway. This solution will be able to address the complicated issue of traffic congestion by controlling and doing its utter best in limiting the drastic numbers of cars on the Lille-Paris motorway. There is proven strength in the application of this strategy as on the Lille-Paris motorway, a decrease of around 10% of peak hour traffic has been achieved with variable tolls rates put in place. However, there is also evidence of failure in this strategy as people have a choice and tend to simply wait until the toll rates are at their least and choose to drive in the roads then, bringing the city back to square one on the problem of traffic congestion.

Kanagarethinam 2 New Yorks solution to control its traffic is by implementing a new plan called the City Plan. This plan, will requires the Metropolitan Transportation Authority provide a full complement of new and enhanced services aimed at accommodation expected auto diversions for those travelling into and within the Manhattan Congestion Zone, as well as access improvements to existing transit services in New York. However, due to this strategy being very recently put into place, there have been no records of failures or successes of these strategies to control the catastrophic traffic issues in New York.

Bangkok has introduced Integrated Transport Strategies to cope with its massive amount of traffic during peak hours. The result of these strategies would include the improving of human health through the reduction of urban air pollution, the reduction of GHG emissions, deaths and injuries from road accidents, harmful noise levels, and traffic congestion on the roads of Bangkok. This includes more public transport services including high quality and affordable services, more bicycle infrastructure such as cycle ways, and better land-use and transport planning processes. However, as these strategies have just been implemented recently, there has been no strong evidence to prove that there are strengths, or weaknesses in theses strategies.

In conclusion, we can clearly see and acknowledge the fact that traffic congestions do prove to be detrimental for a citys development, and that the respective cities stated above have tried various strategies to cope with this problem. However, not all of these strategies have good impacts on the cities. As we would say, a coin has two sides to it. Similarly, there are good and bad impacts on the cities from these strategies being put into place, to control an everlasting problem of traffic congestion.

Kanagarethinam 3 Bibliography:

Sander, Elliot G. "Comments on the New York City Traffic Congestion Mitigation Plan."Comments on the New York City Traffic Congestion Mitigation Plan (2007): 112.Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.

European Conference of Ministers of Transport. Managing Urban Traffic Congestion. Paris: OECD, 2007. Google Books. Google. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.

Thomas Hamlin. "Bangkok Declaration Sustainable Transport Goals for 2010 2020." United Nations Centre for Regional Development, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.