Writing Feedback / Petrol price increase and its impact on traffic & pollution levels [5]

This is my first essay uploaded. I feel it a little too long for a test but I did not know how to cut it down. I hope that you all could help and give me your feedback and correction for my writing. Thank you.

Question: Increasing the price of petrol is the best way to solve growing traffic and pollution problems. To what extent do you agree or disagree? What other measures do you think might be effective?

My essay:

The question of how to tackle the growing of traffic congestion and pollution remains a controversial one. Solving these problems is likely to need more than a simple rise in the price of petrol.

The idea of driving up fuel cost could be considered as a solution for the problems. In order to limit the effect of fuel cost increasing, people might choose between: to limit their travel activities, or to consider alternative saving transport means such as public transportation, thereby partially solve the problem. However, I find it hard to completely agree with the idea that the solution is the best one for heavy traffic and pollution problems for long. The reason is vary; one is that the both two choices would not drastically change the total demand for travel. People only can afford to limit their "extra-curricular activities" which is not much and cannot reduce the demand for required activities such as work or education etc. which is the main demand and they also would not use public transportation as an alternative one due to its quality and quantity are currently not meet the needs and the convenience of the passengers. Secondly, escalating the gasoline price would also increase input costs of wide ranges of enterprises that relies on petroleum either in their production processes or delivery stages; which in turn lead to the rising sale price of products. Products with same quality but higher price together with the pressure of higher transportation cost would affect the consumer to buy fewer products and definitely it would not encourage enterprises to expand their production which eventually might harm the economy and in a worsen circumstance it could lead to an economic crisis.

There are also other more effective measures to be considered such as properly re-dividing lanes in cities, charging additional fee on transportation traveling during rush hours in some heavy traffic roads, encourage people to use clean-power-using vehicles etc. Moreover, it is also required a serious consideration for long-term solutions. Everybody knows that along with economic development, the explosion of transports as a need for development is inevitable. Therefore, solutions for long could be to focus on forecasting the needs of transportation in order to build appropriate plan for infrastructure construction, invest in cleaner fuels or fuel-saving vehicle R&D (Research and Development) activities, making strict standards for vehicle production, adopt more environmental friendly materials and producing equipments, relocate population in cities etc.

In conclusion, heavy traffic and pollution is the common problems of any developing countries. To solve it, it required combination efforts from individuals and governments; prudence and consistency in implementation.