Please Review my AWA : Magoosh

MagooshExpert Requesting you to please review my AWA. My exam is scheduled on 23rd June 2021 and I am not sure whether I am on the right track for AWA

The following appeared as part of a mayor's proposal to the city council:

Traffic in the central city is the number one complaint of our residents, so I urge you to consider this solution. We should invest in doubling our bus service and adding a light rail system, giving more options to those who don't want to drive through the city. Furthermore, we should make public transportation more accessible by reducing the fees to ride. With less traffic people will be more productive, and with higher productivity comes higher revenue and more taxes, so the system will likely pay for itself.

My answer:
The proposal of the mayor to the city council seems to be in a good light and reflects a good intent overall. However, the proposal does not seem to have the sufficient thoroughness, to have come from the office of the Mayor, as it quickly jumps to the conclusion, without justifying the reasons behind it.

The overall intent shown by the Mayor in the proposal is to increase the number of public transport units. While this may seem to be an obvious solution, this does lack a deeper understanding about the problem. This does not clarify if the lack of public transport is the reason for the increased traffic. There is a possibility that the residents of the city prefer private transport over the public transport, and thus, might not even be willing to travel via bus or light rail, even if given a chance. This is what happened on a few lines of the Metro Rail in Jaipur, a major town of India. Despite of the development of the Metro Rail, people continued to use their personal vehicle, resulting in the underutilisation of an enormous capital intensive public transport, while not reducing the congestion on the roads. Although there is no evidence to prove that this might be the case in the mentioned city, there is no evidence to prove otherwise either. Mayor could have resolved this confusion by providing the current average percent utilisation of public transport. Obviously, any figure showing a very high utilisation of the public transport would mean that introducing more units could provide some relief.

Besides not analysing the root cause, the proposal fails to introduce the deeper understanding of the key sources of traffic. It is highly unlikely that the traffic problem in the central city is uniformly spread across all the routes, and throughout the day. In that case, obviously, merely increasing the number of units of public transport, even if lack of it were a problem, would not render the desired result. The Mayor should have provided the key routes, and key hours during which higher frequency of the units is required. This could actually result in improved utilisation of the public transport, and therefore, be more cost efficient.

The commercial plan introduced by Mayor is vague. It merely relies on certain assumptions, without quantifying anything. First, assuming that more productivity would result in higher revenue and thereby, higher taxes needs to be explained well. Revenue generation depends on multiple factors, besides the improved productivity. These may include supply of materials, demand of service or product, type of job, to name a few. The argument, in no way, attempts to state that all other parameters would remain favourable. Thus, this becomes extremely vague. Second, Mayor has assumed that the increased revenue collected would be enough to balance off the expenses. Assuming this without any justification could be dangerous to the budget and economy of the city. This requires quantification of expenses, estimation of inflation, and, obviously, estimation of increased revenue. The stated proposal lacks them all.

Overall, the proposal presented by Mayor shows his good intent to solve the problem. However, the proposal lacks any depth at all. This does not present the route cause of the problem or justification for the solution. Moreover, the financials have been so vaguely defined that going ahead with the proposal could have serious economic implications. Mayor must recall the proposal, do a thorough revision, and then present a well analysed proposal.