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Traffichere in way marsh is becoming a problem. Although just three years ago a statetraffic survey showed that the typical driving commuter took 20 minutes to getto work, the commute now takes closer to 40 minutes, according to the surveyjust completed. Members of the town council already have suggested more roadbuilding to address the problem, but as well as being expensive, the newconstruction will surely disrupt some of our residential neighborhoods. Itwould be better to follow the example of the nearby city of garville. Last yeargarville implemented a policy that rewards people who share rides to work,giving them coupons of free gas. Pollution levels in garville have droppedsince the policy was implemented and people from garville tell me thatcommuting times have fallen considerable. There is no reason why a policy likegarville's shouldn't work equally well in waymarsh. Inthis letter, the reader suggested that in order to tackle the every growthtraffic and other problems resulting from it, the town council of waymarshshould adopt a policy that encourage people share rides to work, by means ofrewarding them with free gas coupons. And the reader did base hisrecommendation on the some assumptions and facts. Close scrutiny of theseunsolid pieces of evidence, however reveals that though sounding plausible, itsbases are fallacious and not representative enough.
Firstof all, the fact that pollution levels in garville has dropped does notnecessarily mean that it is because of the car-pooling policy. It is possiblethat some other environment-protection-relevant policies have been adopted ingarville, and therefore environmental law enforcement are enhanced. Also, forsome reasons, people in garville are more aware of the serious impact thatpollution would bring about and that led to the decrease of its pollutionlevels. Without ruling out these possible reasons for the improvement ofgarville's environment, the suggestion of w adopting same policy to deal withpollution issues caused by every growing traffic is not convincing enough.
Secondly,it cannot be known from his suggestion how many people from garville think thattheir commuting times had fallen considerably, or whether the majority or onlythe minority of its people feel so. It is very possible that the number ofpeople spending less time commuting is not large enough to support the causalcorrelation between the decrease of time spent on way to work and the adoptionof this particular policy. And people saying so may just relocate, livingcloser to their workplace or working closer to their home. Thus, it is necessary to confirm that thereare a large-enough number of people who do spend less time going to work andthat this is not because of they have a new job near their home or they movedto places near their office.
Thirdly,this suggestion is based on the assumption that there is necessarily a causalcorrelation between the coupons policy and its effect. However, this assumptioncannot be substantiated, at least in this letter. Coupons may work well ingarville because people there are less economically sufficient than people inwaymarsh. If this is the case, this policy cannot work as well as in garvilleand as expected in waymarsh because people in waymarsh may not be willing toscramble for the free coupons by carpooling with strangers to work. Thus thereis actually a reason why a policy like garville's should not work equally wellin waymarsh.
Insum, the recommendation relies on certain doubtful assumptions and uncharacteristicfacts that render it as unconvincing as it stands. To bolster therecommendation, clearer evidence is needed, perhaps via a field investigationor local survey, to make sure that there is a cause and effect relationshipbetween the free gas incentive policy and the decrease of pollution levels andtime spent on the way to work, that people spending less time commuting nowrepresent the majority in garville, and that the average income levels ingarville and waymarsh are at the similar level.
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发表于 2014-6-4 05:40:18
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