Essay 3

Essay 3: Transportation Alternatives

 For years Portland and Vancouver residents have been debating what to do about the old Interstate Bridge on I-5. Residents on both sides of the river—as well as all the others who uses this stretch of I-5—agree that the current bridge slows down traffic and reduces highway safety. However, what should be done to deal with the problem is an open question. This local debate is just one of thousands of debates going on worldwide about how cities should deal with traffic congestion. 

Everybody (except maybe billboard advertisers) complains about traffic congestion, and with good reason. Traffic congestion creates tons of air pollution, decreases highway safety, lowers our economic productivity, and stresses us out. We also know that alternatives to congestion are available, such as buses, light rail, bike paths, and carpooling. Why, then, do we not make greater use of available transportation alternatives? This question is the focus point of our third out-of-class essay for this course.

 For our first reading on the subject, I would like for you to study an article from US News and World Report. The author’s name is Will Sullivan; the title of the article is “Road Warriors.” It appeared in the May 7, 2007 issue of the magazine and can be found on EBSCO. Please read this article actively to begin our conversation about transportation alternatives.

When you do read the article, you will notice that the article I have chosen does not answer the question I have posed for this essay. That’s okay; the article will nevertheless provide good background on the topic and may give you some insight about where to look next for answers. Also, this article will help you deal with a second question that I want to pose for this essay: once you have determined why we don’t use current transportation alternatives, what can we do as a society to help solve the traffic problem? This type of question, calling for a proposal, requires that you find out why the problem exists in the first place.

Like most of our papers, this essay presents you with a persuasive writing situation. This essay includes elements of a proposal, but there are also elements of another type of persuasive writing: cause and effect. In the coming days, we’ll explore different ways to write this kind of paper.

In grading this paper, I will look at all six criteria on your “What Makes a Good English 122 Essay?” sheet: focus, development, audience awareness, organization, correctness, and citations. I expect your paper to be word processed, printed on regular paper in 12 point type, double-spaced, in an academic font such as Times New Roman, spell checked, and proofread. Regarding the grammar, I will be evaluating you on all of the grammar principles that we have covered in class: complete sentences, agreement, comma usage, parallelism, minor punctuation, and sentence unity. Regarding citations, you will need to refer to at least two recent (2006 or later) periodical articles from EBSCO or ProQuest. You will need to provide effective MLA citations and a complete MLA works cited page (not a bibliography). The length of this paper should be 1500-1800 words.