Toefl essay_topic19: Should governments spend more money on improving roads and highways, or should governments spend more money on improving...
Score4.0:
As for the economic situation and living standard in China, spending more money on improving public transportation is definitely a wise choice for governments. I will show some specific reasons and details in this essay to support my point.
First, in big cities just like the capital Beijing and the biggest city Shanghai, while the automobile industry rapidly grows up, more and more urban people have their won cars which make the traffic congestion become never worst before, as it today. Investment on public transportation like subway could increase the load ability under the ground so that make the traffic jams much better on the ground.
Second, as everybody knows China is a big country, in the rural part, especially the inland area, it is so hard to build roads and highways because of the complex geography situation and the not very well economic situation. Meanwhile, It costs more money not only for governments to build the road or preserve it but the inland people also cannot afford it. On the other side, invest on railroad and trains would cost less and make the economic of undeveloped area growing rapidly.
Thirdly well facilities on public transportation could attract more people stop buying their private cars, at the same time, less cars means less fuels, less pollution. In this side of the question, we could also get a better place for dwelling.
Although spending money on improving highways may be more profitable and give the government more income, as the Oil crisis become more and more terrible today, many people who have their own cars prefer to use the public transportation which makes the investment in this area more urgent than ever.
Score5.0:
In this morden society, governments always confront the dilemma that whether spending more money on improving roads and highways or on improving public transportation. This problem is a much debated one in that it affects everybody in his or her daily life. Personally speaking, I would be one of those who argue that governments should spend more money on improving public transportation.
Though it is quite rational for average people to choose roads and highways because of the obvious reason that a better road condition could suspend more vehicles and accelerate the speed of them. A close scrutiny of the potential benefits of choosing roads and highways would reveal how flimsy it is to stick to the propensity. A better road condition would bring with it more vehicles, thus a much more crowded traffic. Have you ever been caught in a traffic jam? Then how could just spending more money on improving roads and highways do?
Besides, putting the discussion in a wider context, a further reason why I advocate the later lies in the fact that an improve of road condition would stimulate more people to use cars and hence more enegry would be used and more pollution would be exposed. This would be the last thing that everyone would like to see. But if we choose to improve public transportation, a quite different result could be. This can be demonstrated by the undeniable fact of our city. We have greatly improved the bus network and reduced the parking places since several years ago. Now more and more people shift from cars to buses and other public transportation, and an azure sky can be highly savored again.
Finally, to speak frank, there is also a more practical reason why I choose to improve public transportations. Public transportation encourages a sense of community. People who travel to work together all the time get to know each other better while cars isolate us from neighbors. An improvement in public transportation would make it fit more people's schedules and more people would choose to take public transportation to enjoy communicating with each other.
When taking into account all these merits and drawbacks I have numerated, we may safely arrived at the conclusion that we should put more money and concerns more about public transportation. We would experience more convenience when traveling as well as an appreciable natureenvironment.
