Car Sales Restriction to prevent further traffic

 

Traffic has become one of those things we have gotten used to as a species. It's like breathing at this point, especially in India. Whenever we step outside we hear the sweet symphony of pure pandemonium. People living near or on busy roads do not even need to step outside to listen to the chaos. As one might expect, city life has become quite tedious due to this issue. As of 2018, if all the operational cars in the world were to be lined up nose-to-nose, the line would be approximately four times the distance between London and Sydney.

 It is quite difficult to quantify the number of operational 4-wheelers  in the world. In 2018, industry analysts stated that there could be more than 1.4 billion 4-wheelers in the world. Now, there were just 342 million cars in 1976 and there were 670 million cars in 1996. As one can probably guess - this growth is staggering, to say the least. It means that should this rate of growth persist, we could see 2.8 billion 4-wheelers in 2038. 

So, it is safe to say that even if car sales diminish for one or two countries across the globe, it will not impact the overall growth rate to a great degree. We all know the environmental impact of such figures. This article shall discuss the possibility of car sales restrictions preventing further traffic. I do not think that restricting car sales just to reduce further traffic is the main idea behind this topic, however. I think it goes deeper than that.

 We understand that more motor vehicles on the roads guarantee an increase in at least two types of pollution namely air pollution and noise pollution. There could be other ways in which the production and consumption of automobiles affects the environment but those two are the most noticeable. Even electric vehicles (EV) are of not that much help - yes, they do use electricity which is cheaper than fuel and they are definitely the future of motor cars. However, coal still remains the primary method of electricity generation which allows the nascent EV industry to even exist. 

There is also the issue of the battery EVs use and their impact on the environment once they become obsolete. However, EVs are characteristically silent and an electric car is designed to be quick and quiet - so that's one upside. But it still does not solve the problem of traffic. 

If the goal is to reduce the presence of automobiles on the roads then cheap and viable alternatives must be discussed. Public transport would need to be given an even bigger push. Cities would have to devote hundreds of millions, if not more, to develop means of transport that are safe, widely accessible, cheap, and advanced enough for even middle-class people to start using them. After all, it is the people in the middle-income group who are the most active on the roads as drivers or passengers. 

Restricting car sales does not seem like a prudent solution to the traffic issue. The problem of road congestion is not only related to the high number of motor vehicles on the roads, it depends on the roads themselves as well. A higher quality of road infrastructure must be provided such that vehicle traffic is controlled and automobile movement remains smooth, safe, and feasible. One of the best examples of such road infrastructure is the famous Bill Keene Memorial Interchange (originally called the Four Level Interchange) in Los Angeles.

It was built in 1949 and is famous for being the first stack interchange in the world. It is the perfect example of traffic control which minimizes automobile risk to a great degree and makes a large part of the city accessible. The meaning of traffic is reduced mobility of vehicles due to either congestion or road blockage. Restricting car sales, on paper, sounds like a good plan to deal with the problem of traffic but when one thinks about it logically - it is not feasible considering the current global economic climate. However, an emphasis on better road maintenance and development coupled with environmentally positive innovations in the EV industry could definitely help reduce this daily nuisance to a great degree.