The Contemporary Importance of Public Transportation

Transportation that is more than our feet has been one of mankind's greatest achievements in the history of the world and beyond. With the use of transportation, people and cargo are delivered from Point A to Point B in much shorter time than it took a walking human to reach their destination. Indeed, without transportation, humanity could not have reached its peak as a global network and a financial powerhouse.

Much time can be saved with transportation, but no matter how many artificial islands are created, the land of the world is limited, even if expanded. So is the threat to it by a growing mass of private transportation—every vehicle that is within a private citizen's ownership. With the massive growth of the human population and the increasing involvement of driving-able citizens joining the ranks of veteran drivers, more traffic jams are created, making the time to reach Point A to Point B extremely large.

And with more cars produced, there are more hazardous chemicals polluting the world and decreasing our health and life expectancy. In some countries, it has come to people's inability to go outside without protecting their nose and mouth, such as in India, China, Japan, and South Korea.

At one point, there was a chance for a solution to this problem, at least partially, by using cars that consume electricity instead of oil. In 2007, an Israeli corporation named Better Place was about to revolutionize transportation by creating proper infrastructure for electric cars around the world, such as recharge stations. However, it was disbanded in 2013 due to lack of funding.

Even if this corporation had succeeded and prospered internationally, it would only have solved one problem—the problem of damaging the quality of the environment. It would not have solved the other problem, which is the gradually decreasing space for roads in metropolises, where most of humanity resides.

This is why public transportation needs not only to be more invested in by governments worldwide, but also to be encouraged as much as possible to be used. Even if it may take some of your personal time and even if there is no privacy in the bus's interior space, it can not only reduce the output of unhealthy chemicals into the atmosphere, but is also much cheaper than getting a license, buying a car, maintaining it, and fixing it altogether.

And let's not talk about the issue of parking lots—with public transportation, you can save much time from searching extensively for an available parking space to bring you out of your misery.

There should be more buses, and they should be used not only in metropolises but across metropolises. In a world where public transportation becomes the norm, there would be less traffic jams, people would be healthier, and the environment would be damaged less, increasing our well-being and reducing our modern tensions.

Private transportation, on the other hand, should be less encouraged. Even if it brings you independence, your car wastes space on traffic that otherwise could have been used by more passengers. One can estimate that a bus is about the length of three cars, and each car has 1 to 4 passengers.

A bus, however, can have a few dozen passengers. If the dozens of passengers would drive a car instead, the sum of their cars could be about the length of a few buses. That's very wasteful, if you ask me, and I don't even plan to get a driver's license, because I prefer to contribute to the traffic by letting only myself in the traffic, and not an entire car with 2 or 3 empty seats.

That's very wasteful, if you ask me, and I don't even plan to get a driver's license, because I prefer to contribute to the traffic by letting only myself in the traffic, and not an entire car with 2 or 3 empty seats.

If more people use public transportation, there will be a natural demand for governments to invest more resources in their public transportation departments. This pressure will reduce the number of cars on the road and could encourage the manufacture of more buses and more maintenance for the buses. Even though governments will have to pay more to get things done, it may even benefit them in the long run by having to worry less about the creation of new roads and the expansion of existing ones.

In the far future, it may even be inevitable to use some sort of public transportation, because there will be less space left to build roads on. With more cars on the road, it would take even longer to reach one's destination, to the point that you may be able to reach your destination much faster by walking, which is by itself a good solution for proportionate distances and good for your health and well-being.

Don't be deluded by the speed and attractiveness of new cars in the commercials. In reality, you may spend a significant portion of your day waiting in traffic jams. There's no need to boast about the luxury of an expensive car—it waits in traffic jams just like an old one. Sacrifice your privacy for the sake of the destiny of the world.