The Road Building Issues Report

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Introduction

The car is a key moment in the contemporary culture. The automobiles not only surround our communities, they float up in our dreams, songs and films. The cars not only move us from one location to another, they are part of our individuality, just like the clothes we wear. These days car firms try to persuade people that a new auto will offer them speed, force, supremacy, love, romance, sex, safety, tranquility, family, social position, wealth, the atmosphere of “having made it”, freedom, escape from routine being, and/or community. For all that we have reached to anticipate from cars, both practically and psychologically, our single-minded devotion to this form of carrying has become at an immense cost to health, security, and the environment.

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The high level of industrialization requires the high volumes of car manufacturing. Global wealth has several times increased since the beginning of the automobile era, and now every fifth citizen in the world has an opportunity to buy a car. The cars stopped being the means of luxury: now they are regarded as the means of transport, and, as it has been mentioned above – the part of individuality and personal style.

But it should be mentioned, that the car manufacturing also requires the improvements in the subsidiary spheres. These are: the road building, ecological issues, the issues of fuel economy and transfer to the alternative fuels. If it is necessary to persuade people to refuse from using cars, and choose public transport, the municipalities and governments should realize that it will require the improvements of the existing infrastructure. Thus t depends on the means of transport which are to be enhanced for the advanced public use.

Today according to the information provided by Worldwatch Institute, “at least a third of a normal city’s territory is devoted to roads, parkings, and other components of transport car infrastructure.” In lots of cities and towns, citizens stay in traffic jams while the lines of trolleys and trains that once served their neighborhoods remain abandoned or ruined. Los Angeles, for example, has expended billions to reconstruct a rail transit system much smaller than the one eliminated in the 1940s.

Road Building

The statistic shows, that the road building costs involve $275, 000 per km to $600,000 per km, but these are just approximate calculations, as every building project is unique, and road building depends on several factors, such as Site condition, Weather conditions, Traffic volume and Drainage. Moreover, the average costs for maintaining and repairing the existing roads are expressed in the following table.

Reseals$2,460, 000
Patching$515,000
Edge Repair$123,000
Pavement repair$224,000
Shoulder Repairs$1,002,000
Grading Gravel Roads$1,375,000
Vegetation Control$500,000
Footpath Maintenance$90,000

Moreover, the road building is often closely linked with lots o ecological issues, such as the deforestation. According to the report on the matters of cutting down the forests in Croatia for the needs of road building, the issue of construction forest roads in low-lying woodlands is linked to the detachment between the forest roads and the construction and preservation costs. The finest concentration of a woodland road network was calculated on the topography according to acknowledged models. The reproduction of lowest total costs applied to the management unit Ć iljakovacka Dubrava in Croatia; the categorization of the forest roads was elaborated on the landscape; the current conditions for the opening-up of forests through a forest road network were recorded; an analysis of expenditures was made in accordance to the type of roads, building technique and protection financing in the community enterprise Hrvatske ĆĄume, forest management authority of Velika Gorica; finest road concentration for the opening-up of woods in this management unit was estimated; and merits and demerits of optimization of opening this woodland area were seriously analyzed. The report provides the necessary calculations on the timber extraction in the connection with the road building:

Dragging distancePrice in Dm/m3
0-507.00
51-1008.95
101-15011.05
151-20013.30
201-25015.75
251-30018.30
301-35021.00
351-40023.85
401-45026.90
451-50030.00

Underground

The fact is, the cost of an underground building is much higher than for the on-surface building, unless obtainable underground equipment is used. The high expenditure point in underground building is not only the tunnel building, but also the installation of air conditioning systems. The reasons for underground building can be that it is much safer and ecologically clean, but the costs, which the governments will face, are rather immense, and this project may become the “several-years one”.

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The average price for every mile of subway building varies from $ 20 million to $ 20.5 million. In comparison with the on-surface buildings the expenditures are from 3.3 to 5.2 times higher. It is significant to emphasize there are both merits and demerits of building lines on the surface and underground. While there are aesthetic benefits of locating the lines underground, but those benefits are offset by the drawbacks. In addition to cost, the key disparity between underground and on-surface lines is that it naturally takes much more time to locate, analyze a problem and repair a subway line. The distinction in repair time is best distinguished in hours or days relatively than weeks or months. In heavily settled urban areas (where subway tunnels are usually built for locating public facilities), subway lines are occasionally the only way to navigate around tall buildings when no possible transparency corridor exists.

Railways

Another alternative for road building is the railway building. It is cheaper than the tunnels and subways buildings, but less secure. The engineers of Australia-Asia railway project offered the revolutionary decision – to build the sleepers of concrete which are cheaper and heavier so it holds the track better (especially with flooding), and easier to acquire and less vulnerable to termites than timber. But the serious approach to the issues of railway building also require huge expenses. As the mentioned above example shows, the building of each kilometer would cost nearly $ 900 thousand in average (the total length of the projected railway is 1420 km, and the contract amount is $ 1.3 billion). Though, the average possible speed of railway moving is restricted by the natural conditions of the environment, and consists 120 km/h (the possibility of deforestation or tunneling is not taken into account, as the building of speedy railways is the more complex procedure, both to account, elaborate and to build).

Taxation and payment

Another way to make people refuse from using personal cars is to implement special taxations for the use of the cars, emission taxes, taxes for passing. The measures may be soft (slight rise of the taxes, non-strict rules and fines), and hard, which may seriously discourage people from using their cars. The experience of the Mexican government may be rather useful in the restrictions of the car movement. As Mexico experiences serious ecological issues, the municipal government decreed to divide all the cars into several groups, in order each group was forbidden to appear on the city streets in some particular day.

Another way of restricting the traffic is the implementation of the pay-as-you-drive system, which helps to kill two birds with the single stone. First of all it helps to solve the key issue (traffic restriction), and collect finances which may be directed to any purpose: the road repair or building the new one, charity, social needs etc.

It should be mentioned that there are huge disputes on the issues of this system in Great Britain. Tony Blair, when he was the prime minister, insisted that pay-as-you-drive road taxation must be painstaking to begin obstruction. His retaliation came as Tavish Scott, the transport minister, abandoned constituency commerce so he could reply to Conservative arguments on the matter at Holyrood.

In 2005, a government-commissioned investigation appointed that taxes could range from 2p per a mile to ÂŁ1.34 per a mile for the most crowded roads. Today, drivers currently paid an average 11.6p a mile in taxes. The Prime Minister emphasized that as any pronouncement had been made to implement the national drive-taxation scheme, “the guesses about probable costs are simply not realistic, as they depend on so many inconsistencies yet to be studied, never mind decided”.

Restrictions

The possible restrictions may be not only taxation, as it has been regarded above, but may also relate the legislation. The legislative norms and rules may include as the amounts of the taxation, such as the particular obligations of the drivers who drive in personal aims or in working purposes. Alongside with the implementation of the obligations and restrictions, the fuel tickets may be offered. The fuel tickets may be of wide usage: something like on-road currency, awards for successful passing of driver’s exam, markup for the usual salary, or they may be fined for the road laws violation.

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As for the obligations, it is meant, that the citizens who will to drive their cars need to take special obligations relating not only fair and secure driving, but also, for example, make donations to orphanages, hospitals, charity organizations. The mechanisms may be various, but the principle is to get some certificate of donation, or regular driver’s test.

The refuse from the observation must result in driver’s license confiscation or not-giving the fuel ticket.

Another point of possible restrictions is the restrictions in the industry. The main idea is to decrease the manufacturing level of the cars, and increase the manufactures of public transport vehicles, with the improved level of anti-emission equipments.

Ecology

According to British Government statistics issued in 2004, road transport emissions some 27 per cent of carbon. Moreover it points out in the social costs of road calamities and respiratory diseases, and the economic prices of road overcrowding, and the case for demand administration to manage and diminish road traffic becomes convincing. The question is about when and how, but not if.

Climate change is an internationally identified problem. Carbon dioxide is the most sufficient greenhouse gas and is assigned to be described for around 70% of radiative forcing of weather by the end of the century. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCCC) was signed in 1992 and at Kyoto in 1997 industrialized states agreed to aims which will decrease their emanations of six greenhouse gases to 5.2% below 1990 levels during the period 2008-2012. The UK Kyoto obligation is a 12.5% reduction. The UK also has a local target of a 20% decrease in carbon dioxide emissions beneath 1990 levels by 2010 (DETR, 2000a). The 2003Energy White Paper (DTI, 2003a) accepts the need for deeper cuts of 60% by 2050. Transport has probably a significant role to play in attaining decrease targets. In the transportation sector CO2 rate is about 96% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The transportation sphere is the third biggest resource of carbon dioxide emissions in the UK.

The Tyndall Center for Climate change research offers the table of the necessary changes in the transport sphere in the report devoted to the decrease o the Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions

Study and baselineBaseline
transport
emissions MtC
and share of
total %
Changes to transport demand and supplyTotal
Emissions
2050 MtC
Transport
Emissions 2050
MtC
RCEP38.8 (26%)Scenario 1: efficient vehicles, switch to fuel cells
Scenario 2 and 3: 25% reduction in transport energy demand through use of fuel cells, increased public transport use, changing lifestyles, use of telecommunications.
Scenario 4: 33% reduction in transport energy demand.
59Scenarios 2 to 4 imply a slight increase in transport’s share of emissions.
Carbon Trust
Baseline 1
60 (41%)Low carbon future, savings of 8.4MtC from fuel cell efficiency and 14.96MtC from sourcing H2 from renewables46.6436.64 (78.6%)
Carbon Trust
Baseline 2
43 (36%)Low carbon future, savings of 6.82MtC from fuel cell efficiency and 14.96MtC from sourcing H2 from renewables37.2621.22 (56.9%)
PIU no baselineGlobal Sustainability and Local Stewardship both could reduce emissions by up to 30MtC through increased efficiency, land use changes, increased use of public transport and non-motorised modes5525 (45.4%) GS
22 (40.0%) LS
IAG59 (41%)Technology leading to the use of low carbon fuels, congestion grows, no new road building, saturation of car ownership and reduced rail fares.6236 (58.1%)
AEA BAU43 (37%)A 60% reduction involves 87.8% H2 fuel cells
A 70% reduction involves 98.0% H2 fuel cells
60
45
16 (26.7%)
13 (28.9%)
AEA World Markets52 (39%)A 60% reduction involves 90.7% H2 fuel cells
A 70% reduction involves 98.6% H2 fuel cells
59
45
20 (33.9%)
12 (26.7%)
AEA Global
Sustainability
34 (34%)A 60% reduction involves 74.2% H2 fuel cells
A 70% reduction involves 83.8% H2 fuel cells
59
45
20 (33.9%)
12 (26.7%)

Alternative Fuels

First of all it is necessary to provide short review of the kinds of fuels.

Ethanol is produced locally from corn and other crops and emits less GHG than conventional fuels.

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Biodiesel is extracted from vegetable oils and animal fats. It typically creates less air toxins than petroleum-based diesel.

Natural gas is a vestige fuel that makes less air toxins and GHG.

Propane, also named liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), is a locally copious remnant fuel that generates less harmful air toxins and GHG.

Hydrogen can be produced domestically from fossil fuels (such as coal), nuclear power, or renewable resources, such as hydropower. Fuel cell vehicles powered by pure hydrogen emit no harmful air pollutants.

The alternative fuels are much heaper than the conventional ones, thus, the owners of the cars which use diesel or petroleum are crucially discouraged by the prices they pay in comparison with the prices for the non-conventional fuels. The fact is, it is not the solution of the problem to make the people refuse from using cars and start using public transport, but the adoption of the alternative-fuel-using engines will partially solve the ecological issue of the problem regarded in this report, and will help to save money for the other innovations and projects.

Propaganda

The changes that are proposed in the current report are inseparable with the public opinion, and to change the public opinion, government needs to resolve to the PR actions. The fact is that it would be very difficult to change the opinion which had been forming for the recent century, but the perspective of full refuse of personal cars is also not short-term affair. So, it should be said, that people are always attracted by some colorful and spectacular promotions. The PR actions oriented towards children and adolescents will necessarily attract their young parents, which will lead to the success in the promo-action.

The possible actions could be directed towards the issues of environmental protection, describing the existing ecological situation, and revealing the means and tools of environmental protection. The actions may take place in the form of public lectures, in the form of games, quizzes and contests (such as relay races, city quests, pencil or chalk drawing contests for children etc).

The promo actions also may be empowered by the implementation of the privileges for those who use public transport. It also may have an entertaining form. Thus, for example, it is possible to arrange lotteries for people who collected some quantity of the tickets.

The promo actions, which are the integral part of changing public opinion, should be elaborated properly, like the marketing strategy of any goods, which enter the market, and is aimed to conquer its own sector. That is why; the approximate strategy of possible actions may b the following:

  • Public lecture (target group is the people aged 25-45), on the topics relating the issues of the harm, which steady driving brings to health.
  • Concert with the music stars and childish musical collectives under the slogan “give up driving – save your health”. The concert may be accompanied with the weight lifting contests, sprint runs, cycle races etc.
  • Publishing of the brochures with propaganda materials, facts relating the harm for health and environment cased by the use of cars with conventional fuel. To attract attention – the brochures must be good looking in all the aspects, including the quality of paper, set of the materials, pictures and colors. These may be separated into several groups: oriented towards different age groups, for those who have and who do not have the car, for various social groups. It is not worth mentioning that the set of the materials and design needs to be individual for each kind of the booklet.

Healthy way of life

“Good health means that you’re in balance, body, mind, and spirit.” Noreen Smith.

Inspite of the fact that it has been promoting for the recent few years, it slightly touches upon the harm of the use of cars. The dynamics and sports should be advertised not only as a kind of leisure and time spending in front of the TV with a bottle of beer, but as the kind of everyday, or at least every weekend family activity.

This point of propaganda should include necessary anatomical education, description of exercises or command games, suitable for playing in public places, such as parks, city plantings, squares etc, and of course the information on healthy nutrition. All the promotions on these issues may be held under the slogan “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. It is said about the prevention of the deceases caused by the hypodynamia.

To link the sports activities and the privileges of using the public transport, the following decision may be implemented: the public transport ticket (3, 5, 10 etc tickets) may become fitness club one-time membership card, or give the right for obtaining some vitamin pills.

Thus, special places for sports, recreational and fitness activities should be created. It should be mentioned, that these should be for individual, for group and for family activity, for in-door and out-door activities.

Some of the widespread and simple to make exercises include yoga, pilates, dancing, aerobics and usual floor trainings. The tip here is that these trainings are recognized since ages and have confirmed that practicing them can maintain people in shape and healthier.

Another way of promoting healthy way of life is to arrange either corporate visitations of shaping centers or gyms, or establish gyms for the workers of the exact enterprise, and encourage workers attend it during the brakes, instead of attending fast food restaurants or smoking.

Mind map (the changes that should be done in order to make people refuse from using their cars)

Mind map
Figure 1. Mind map

References

Beaudesertshire, a region of many colors.

Picman, D & Pentek, T , 2004 “The influence of forest roads building and maintenance costs on their optimum density in low-lying forests of Croatia” Faculty of Forestry, University of Zagreb.

Austral-Asia railway corporation. 2004. Web.

American Transmission Company. 2005

I&dea knowledge. 2001-2007

Bristow, A. Pridmore, A. Tight, M. May, T. Berkhout, F. Harris, M 2004 “How can we reduce carbon emissions from transport?” Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

Beckerman, Wilfred, and Joanna Pasek. Justice, Posterity, and the Environment. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Buell, Frederick. From Apocalypse to Way of Life: Four Decades of Environmental Crisis in the U.S.. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Fossati, Amedeo, and John Hutton, eds. Policy Simulations in the European Union. London: Routledge, 1998.

Hapgood, Fred. “Notes from the Underground.” The Atlantic Monthly, 1994: 34

Holzman, David C. “Driving Up the Cost of Clean Air.” Environmental Health Perspectives 113.4 (2005): 246

Lareau, Thomas J. “The Economics of Alternative Fuel Use: Substituting Methanol for Gasoline.” Contemporary Policy Issues 8.4 (1990): 138-152.

Meotti, Michael P. “Clean Fuel Vehicles: The Air Pollution Solution.” Journal of Environmental Health 58.4 (1995): 27.

Owen, Anothony D., and Nick Hanley, eds. The Economics of Climate Change. New York: Routledge, 2004.

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