Eco-Escuela EOI Cádiz: HEAVY TRAFFIC IN CADIZ CITY CENTRE: SOLUTIONS

HEAVY TRAFFIC IN CADIZ

PROPOSAL Nº1:

We are a group of students of English from the Official School of Languages in Cadiz, which is also an Eco-school. We have been working in class to try to solve the environmental problems of our city and we believe that one of the main problems Cadiz has is the constant increase of heavy traffic in the city centre. We want to propose some possible solutions to improve this situation. We would like to have an eco-friendly city, so each one of us has given different ideas hoping that they could be implemented in Cadiz:

· Building an overground car park on several floors would be a good idea. Taking into consideration that our city does not have much space, this parking lot could be built on a platform on the sea.

· When the cycle lane is finished giving economic incentives to workers that use bicycles to go to work, as well as providing cheap bike rental services, could be good solutions too.

· The use of public transport should be promoted by increasing the number and the frequency of buses in the rush hours. It is also necessary to reduce the price of bus cards for residents and students. In addition to this, we think that in order to live in a less polluted city, at least 50% of the buses should run on renewable energy.

· Another way to reduce heavy traffic and pollution in the city could be creating a mobile phone application for “carpooling”, that is, sharing a car between different people. We think this option could be very interesting and economical.

· It would be necessary to build a tram line or to increase the number of trains that stop in all the stations along the way to get to the centre from the new part of the city. This would also imply reducing the price of tickets.

· Finally, another possibility to make Cadiz a more eco-friendly city would be to build a “park-and-ride” area outside the town with continuous free or very cheap shuttle bus services, so that people coming from other towns could always leave their car there and jump on a bus to get into the city centre. That way we would avoid traffic jams and reduce pollution significantly, thus creating a more pleasant city to live, work and shop in.

Obviously, all of this would require a greater involvement of our local authorities, increasing the budget to implement, at least, some of the proposed solutions.

TRABAJO REALIZADO POR:

ISABEL AZNAR; PALOMA BRAZA; BEGOÑA GALLARDO; DOLORES GOMEZ GALLARDO; BELLA GRANADO; JAVIER RINCON; JUANA RUIZ

Nivel: B2.1, grupo B EOI Cádiz

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PROPOSAL Nº 2 (EMAIL TO THE CADIZ TOWN COUNCIL)

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are writing to express our concern about the greenhouse gases, smog and environmental problems we have in our city. We are a group of students at the Official School of Languages. Ours is an eco-school and we have some proposals to improve the problem of heavy traffic in the city of Cadiz:

- Encourage the use of the bicycle by the employees of businesses in the city with a bonus in their salaries. This would be paid to the people who take the bicycle instead of a car or a motorbike to go to work.
- Improve public transport by introducing electronic smartcards for travelling, similar to London´s Oyster cards. These would be for young people, students, unemployed people or for everyone, and they would certainly promote the use of public transport.
- Create a public hire bicycle system such as “Bicimad” in Madrid, as it would make bikes available to everyone.
- Decrease the price of tickets in short distance trains because that is the reason why not many people take the train between “Cortadura and Cadiz Central”.
- More shuttle bus services between the Campus in Rio San Pedro and Cadiz to cater for students and residents alike
- Encourage the use of carpooling with local campaigns promoted by the City Council.