Commuters complain that increased rush hour traffic on Blue Highway between the suburbs and the city center has doubled their commuting time The favored proposal of the motorist lobby is to widen the highway adding an additional lane of traffic Opponents

In the editorial from the local newspaper, it is stated that opponents of motorist’s lobby’s plan to add another lane to Blue Highway have instead advocated that a bicycle lane be constructed in order to alleviate the highway’s traffic issues. The opponents have come to this conclusion based on the issues faced by Green Highway last year as well as the keen interest in bicycling of the area’s local residents. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, three questions must be answered.

First of all, are Green Highway and Blue Highway roughly comparable? In other words, can circumstances from one highway be used to make generalization and prediction about the other? It is possible that Green Highway and Blue Highway are not similar at all- perhaps Green Highway runs through residential neighborhoods, whereas Blue Highway is located mostly in rural, unpopulated sections of the city. Further, there is a possibility that the quality of the highways is markedly different, with Green Highway’s roads falling apart and Blue Highway’s in pristine condition. If either of these scenarios has merit, then conclusion drown in the original argument is significantly weakened.

Secondly, do a majority of the area residents interested in biking live within biking distance of their places of employment? The opponents in the argument prematurely assume that many of the residents in the town will bike to work in the morning rather than drive their cars. Perhaps the average distance from home to work is over 15 miles, and that’s why many of the residents are essentially obligated to take the highway – even if they don’t want to. In an ideal world, they might choose to bike to work, but if the reality is such that they cannot do so due to the logistics of their situations, then only one form of transportation is possible. If above is true, then the argument does not hold water.

Lastly, won’t the inclusion of the bicycle traffic alongside the normal traffic be largely incongruous? And what if it aids in causing unanticipated hindrances to the traffic flow on the Blue Highway by bringing upon increase in substantial accidents and delays due to the inherent mismatch in the core driving dynamics and operational parameters like speed among the two different modes of transportation. So, such presumption from the opponents in the argument about completely bypassing the possibility of accidents and delays (from consecutive roadblocks) resulting from incompatible introduction of the bicycling lanes within the blue highway, originally designed to accommodate high speed traffic brings a major flaw within the argument into the limelight, which will in-turn diminish the conclusion made by the author as impractical or childish.

In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to answer the three questions above and offer more evidence (perhaps in the form of a systematic research study), then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability if the proposed recommendation to add a bike lane to Blue Highway.