Reducing Traffic in Miami

Our names are Emily and Yael and we are students at Hebrew Academy in Miami Beach. For Civics class, we researched an issue that our community has faced. I chose traffic, because Miami has had a huge problem with traffic. Everyone thinks that the solution should be adding more lanes. However that does not help at all. If everyone has to go on the same highway for 1 hour there will be traffic no matter how many lanes you add. What we need to do is add more options.
Over the years, Miami traffic has gotten increasingly worse, and it wastes both time and money. In 2012 Texas A&M University studied Miami traffic and it showed that people lost 47 hours a year because of traffic. In 2016, 47 hours turned into 125 hours. Now, people can expect to lose 132 hours per year. South Florida is also known for having the 7th worst congestion in the US. Miami’s traffic causes as much as 1.9 billion pounds of carbon dioxide emissions during rush hours. Therefore, because of the carbon dioxide emissions the air becomes much hotter than it already is. As you can see, traffic is a huge issue that everyone faces.
There are so many ways that we can reduce traffic, and with your help and all the government of Miami we can easily make it happen. First, you can charge people to go on roads during congested time. By doing that, less people will want to go on the roads, and people will find less congested places to drive. Second, you should encourage local businesses to allow people to telecommute. Telecommuting is working from home. This will help a lot, because the reason everyone is on the roads is because they are trying to get to work. By letting people work from home, there will be less people traveling. Third, lower the amount of construction going on. Everywhere in Miami, there are a lot of building being built. When the construction is going on, several lanes have to be closed. When this happens, everyone is forced in into 2 lanes. However, the most important thing is adding more options. To get to Miami, everyone has to take the same highway. If you only have one place to drive it will obviously get congested. By adding more options people will discover newer and faster ways to get to where they want to go. Similar ideas have been suggested by others such as Tony Garcia. Tony Garcia is an urban planning consultant who ran the blog TransitMiami.com, says “the problem is not a lack of roads, it’s a lack of options.” “We have to refocus our energy on providing more options and less so on trying to solve for congestion,”