📘 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!