📘 Part 3: Traffic congestion

This episode's vocabulary

Infrastructure (noun) - the basic systems and services, such as transport and power supplies, that a country or organization uses in order to work effectively.

Bottleneck (noun) - a place where a road becomes narrow, or a place where there is often a lot of traffic, causing the traffic to slow down or stop.

Hassle (noun) - (a situation causing) difficulty or trouble.

Slew (noun) - a large amount or number.

To clog (verb) - to (cause something to) become blocked or filled so that movement or activity is difficult.

Crash site (noun) - the place where a crash occurred.

Thought out (adj.) - if something is carefully/well/badly thought out, it is carefully/well/badly planned.

To tackle (verb) - to try to deal with something or someone.

To wind up (phrasal verb) - to find yourself in an unexpected and usually unpleasant situation, especially as a result of what you do.

Mode (noun) - a way of doing something.

To embrace (verb) - to accept something enthusiastically.

To mitigate (verb) - to make something less harmful, unpleasant, or bad.

To concentrate (verb) - to bring or come together in a large number or amount in one particular area.

Questions and Answers

M: When do traffic jams usually happen?

R: I mean, the simple answer is, when there are too many cars on the roads, or at least too many cars for the roads to cope with. But it could also be down to poor infrastructure planning, so engineers haven't arranged for enough space on the roads in certain areas, which causes bottlenecks. That could be a hassle.

M: What are the causes of traffic jams?

R: Other than what I just said? Well, if there have been a slew of accidents, then that could clog up the roads too, especially if the emergency services are delayed getting to the crash sites. Another issue could be poorly thought out laws which are intended to tackle bad driving, but just wind up slowing everyone down.

M: Will traffic congestion ease in the future?

R: Well intended to say yes, because it seems like there will be more people, and so the demand for transport will go up. However, more modes of transport, like drones are becoming available, so it's possible things will even out or even improve if they're embraced by the majority of people, so they don't need to go out in their cars, they can get everything brought to them via air.

M: But could traffic congestion worsen in the future?

R: Well, it's certainly possible, just based on what I said previously. If there are more people, then the number of cars will go up, if no action to mitigate that is taken.

M: What are possible solutions to the problem of congestion traffic?

R: Well, just building fewer cars and creating more and better public transport infrastructure would be a good start. I remember my friend was speaking to me about something called the 15 minute city, which is designed to have everything within walking distance. So I suppose rolling something like that on a large scale would definitely remove the need for all those cars on the roads.

M: Do you think highways will help reduce traffic jams?

R: Well, they would reduce traffic jams between cities or points on a map, but that's not going to do anything for the case in cities where there are narrower roads and there are more cars concentrated in those smaller spaces.

M: Will there be fewer cars if public transport is free?

R: There might be but being free is perhaps necessary, but not necessarily the whole thing. It would need to be free and of a high quality. If you had free public transport, but it constantly broke down, then no one's going to use it, for example.

M: Thank you, Rory, for your answers!

Discussion

M: Traffic congestion, dear listener, means traffic jams. But traffic congestion is a very nice phrase. We also say congested roads. So congestion could be an adjective. For example, congested traffic. Rory, could you use congested roads in a sentence?

R: Yes. The roads outside my house are frequently congested because they're far too narrow and there are too many cars.

M: Traffic jams usually happen when there are too many cars on the roads. So roads can't cope with all these cars. And this is because of poor infrastructure planning, or this is down to poor infrastructure planning.

R: But that just means because of.

M: So traffic jams happen during rush hours, usually on Friday evenings or on any weekday in the evening and in the morning. So morning rush hours and evening rush hours. What are bottlenecks in this context?

R: Well, a bottleneck is a narrowing of the roadway in one way or the other, that prevents cars from moving as fast as they could in other places. So they collect on one side of the bottleneck, because they have to slow down, and as they travel through the bottleneck, they go much slower. So imagine the top of a bottle, how the liquid inside the bottle goes much more slowly out of the bottle because it's narrower at the top. That's a bottleneck.

M: Traffic jams happen, usually due to some accidents. And, Rory, you said, like a slew of accidents. What's this slew?

R: Oh, a slew of something just means a whole load of things, or a lot of things.

M: Yeah, a large amount or number. So a slew of people, a slew of farmers.

R: Well, it's usually used to talk about something bad. So you might not say a slew of people, a slew of accidents would be good.

M: Ooh, okay, yeah, something bad people. So a slew of copycats. Yeah, a slew of bankruptcies. All right? And accidents could clog up the roads. So roads are congested, or roads are clogged up. Full of cars. And another reason could be poorly thought out laws. So laws or regulations which have been thought out, written, created poorly.

R: So they are planned to do one thing, but they end up creating a whole other problem.

M: Yeah, end up or wind up. And bad driving could be the reason and bad driving slows everyone down. Traffic congestion could ease in the future, so there'll be, like, less traffic congestion, or it could worsen. So to get worse or worsen. Worsen. Can I say deteriorate?

R: Absolutely. It gets worse.

M: Yeah. So to get worse, deteriorate, a nice word for speaking and essays. And you can say that it seems so, like yes, it could ease. The demand for something, for transport will go up. More modes of transport will become available, like drones, for example, like flying taxis, helicopters, horses, donkeys, you never know.

R: I mean, it could just be easier if people had drones flying to their houses.

M: Yeah. Like drones carrying people, like huge drone taxis. Can you imagine? A drone, like, picks you up, you know, like, ooh, and then, like, just flies you to your work destination.

R: I would love that.

M: Nice, huh? Yeah. Like, you just, like, put on some parachutes, you know, like... Like a dragon. The Game of Thrones, dear listener. Remember like she commutes on Dragon back? Dragon taxes.

R: Oh, I love it.

M: Mitigate is a very good verb, a very specific one for essays and speaking. We usually use it when?

R: When we want to talk about how people seek to reduce problems or to address problems. If you mitigate something, it's not completely addressed or not normally, but it is dealt with in some way.

M: Yeah. We make something less harmful, unpleasant or bad. Mitigate is a formal word. Usually we say, to mitigate the effects of tourism, to mitigate the effects of some industries on the environment. Could you give us another example?

R: Well, I try and mitigate the chaos around me by having a diary, so everything is planned.

M: We mitigate damage, we mitigate risks, and a very common collocation, phrase is to mitigate the effects of something. So mitigate the impact of oil on nature, for example. Solutions to the problem of congested traffic or solutions to traffic jams, traffic congestion. Ooh, by the way, dear listener, traffic congestion is singular, all right? So it's not traffic congestions. No, no, no, no, no, no. Traffic congestion. There is a lot of traffic congestion, but you can say there are a lot of congested roads or clogged up roads. Rory's solutions are very simple, just building fewer cars. So like we don't need too many cars.

R: I don't think we need as many as we have.

M: Okay. Better public transport. Infrastructure and building cities so that everything is within walking distance. Well, come on, yeah, imagine New York, Tokyo. Yeah, everything is in a walking distance. You can just like...

R: Well, I think we might have to redesign those cities significantly in order for that to become a possibility. But I don't think it's impossible. I think that with some effort, we could do it, and we would all be better for it. We would move more, things would be more efficiently located, and of course, people wouldn't be stuck in these huge urban sprawls. So I think it's better for people. Whether it's better for companies to make money, on the other hand, is another matter entirely.

M: Yeah, dear listener, IELTS doesn't ask you to solve global problems. So you can just say, you know, like, just brainstorm some ideas. Yeah, we're redesigning cities to make everything within walking distance. There you go, a solution. And now, Rory's vocabulary show. Rory, Rory, Rory, Rory, Rory, Rory.

R: Yup. It's the part of the show where I ask Maria questions about the grammar and vocabulary that I used.

M: Yeah, and you answer questions together with me, dear listener, right? So Rory asks questions and you answer, and then you listen to my answer. Okay? Let's do it together. Together with you.

R: But remember, listen carefully to what Maria says, because it's not always the right answer.

M: Yeah, I trick you sometimes.

R: So in the first question, I was asked why or when traffic jams usually happen, and one of the causes I mentioned was because the things which are built in the city to facilitate movement are not well designed. But what did I say to describe that?

M: Poor infrastructure.

R: Yes, the infrastructure is the thing that supports life in the city, and if it's poor, then it's not good. Then we talked about the causes of traffic jams, and I mentioned a whole load of different problems, lots of them. In fact, when I talked about accidents, I used a special phrase to talk about a large number of something. But what was that special phrase?

M: A slew of accidents.

R: Perfect. Then in the next question, we talked about if traffic congestion will get better or worse, and I talked about different kinds of transport, but I didn't say different kinds of transport. What did I say instead?

M: Modes of transport.

R: Oh, fantastic, Maria, you're on course to getting 100%. Then in the last question, I was asked what the possible solutions could be, and I talked about how things could be redesigned so everything is easy to walk to. But I didn't say that. I said something different. What was that?

M: Everything is within walking distance?

R: Hey! Excellent. So full marks, Maria. That means there's a bonus question for you.

M: Yay.

R: We talked about making things easier or not as bad, and there was a special word I used to describe that. But what was it?

M: Ooh, mitigate the effects of something.

R: 100%. I hope Maria... Well, no, Maria got it, and I hope you did too.

M: Thank you very much. We love you, we hug you. Bye!

R: Bye!

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