wicked urban problems in the news

Name
Professor
Institution
Course
Date
Traffic congestion
The world today is characterized by the high growth of urban areas which develop to form cities and towns. These places attract huge populations who migrate to them for different purposes. In most of the urban areas, however, there exist many social problems that affect many activities in the urban areas. There have been many reports on some social issues that affect the society around the urban areas which indeed need to be addressed. Some of these urban problems are also wicked as they are composed of unbelievable acts which are also controversial as they could lead to more negative impacts on the society. Some of these urban problems include poverty, traffic congestions, overcrowded and segregated schools, pollution, urban Blight, water supply and quality, loss of amenity and loss of provision of infrastructure and services. Some of the problems can be termed as weird due to their nature and impact to the society. The paper thus seeks to discuss one of the urban issues which are traffic congestion thereby explaining some of its aspects such as background, why it is wicked, the cause, why there are no obvious solutions, and how the problem is linked to other issues.
Traffic congestion has for a long time affected many urban centers in the 21 century. Many areas in the cities are crowded with motor vehicles owned by different people who for the society of the urban areas (Rao, Amudapuram, and Kalaga). Due to the need of accessibility of the urban areas by people from different social backgrounds mostly in the hash social backgrounds who are employed in most of the urban areas prefer to use their means of transport to their workplaces.

There is a high number of people who also use other transportation means to the urban centers who have also increased the population of transport vehicles that are bought at a very high rate and forms of transport investments by individuals. The number of taxi drivers has also increased over the past few years due to the demand for transport in the urban areas. It is therefore evident that urban traffic congestion is a significant urban problem that affects most of the operations in the urban centers. As different authorities govern urban centers, they encounter many problem s of congestions thus making it so hard to plan for transportation in the urban areas being that the transport sector is impaired with the high rates of traffic congestion.
The problem of traffic congestion is, however, a wicked problem due to its nature and causes. It is one problem that is very hard to control in the urban areas due to many hindering factors and factors that contribute to its happening it is also an issue that has been debated for a very long time where solutions have been drawn severally not to succeed because of different uncertainties and controversies of the problem.
To start it, the problem itself is complicated to define. Many reasons make it difficult to define in the contexts of urban areas. First, it is common for people with private cars to drive to work in the morning and go back in the evening to their places thus making it more comprehensive in defining it. It is also a phenomenon that occurs during specific times of the day for example early in the morning there are many traffic congestions on roads heading to the urban-centered due to the enormous number entering the centers. In the revealing, the story is different as the congestions now head away from the urban centers due to the existence of people back to their places (Mund& Sumit). Towns which have many employees, therefore, face these kinds of a challenge since many people seek services and use the urban roads to access the municipal centers thus congesting. The problem is also complicated to define because it is one problem that has existed and it treated as a normal routine in the urban centers.
The urban problems of traffic congestion are also caused by many factors that exist in the urban centers. At some point, they are caused by lack of urban planning which could be implemented in road constructions to reduce the congestion on some other roads. Similarly, traffic congestion is caused by the presence of many vehicles operating in the urban centers that have to move systematically at slow speeds in the urban centers. The presence of many cars on the roads without transit option can, therefore, result in a wicked urban problem that is traffic congestion. Another cause of the problem is the presence of different obstacles on the roads causing a blockage. The road obstacles also exist in various forms including roadwork, road narrowing down, double packing, road accidents and closure of some other routes due to utility work. It will be therefore difficult for vehicles to move smoothly to their destinations since the roads will be kept much busy with the number of the vehicle in traffic (Tsubota et al).
Another major cause of traffic congestions is malfunctioning of traffic lights in the streets the traffic lights are always automated accurately to help in coordinating the movement of vehicles in the urban areas. Their malfunctioning that could be caused by spoilage of the traffic system servers or computers will mislead many drivers thus causing heavy traffic congestion in the particular urban areas.
Another major problem is the presence of a large human population I the urban areas who also use the roads in different ways, for example, crossing the streets to reach their destinations. The act of crossing the streets overpower the movement of vehicles which will have to wait for the pedestrians to cross the roads fully before proceeding. It, therefore, denies many vehicle chances of reaching their destinations or turning quickly to create a way for the others (Jain et al.).
There could also be some event s in the urban areas that attract many people who will suddenly congest the plea and occupy most of the roads in the cities it thus leads to limitations of other road users to use the specific paths. Lack of prior urban planning could also result in the occurrence of traffic congestions. If the municipal centers were not developed accurately in the form of proper and numerous road constructions, there would be a lot of traffic congestion in the particular urban areas.
There is also lack of obvious solutions to such problem due to the fixed construction of urban areas that are just now meant for other practices such as businesses. However, solutions could just be drawn by the municipalities either to manually control the movement and entry of vehicles into the urban centers. They would, therefore, act directly towards reducing the problem.
The problem of traffic congestion is linked to other problems such as transport which is constrained by the numerous traffics on the road it would be therefore more challenging to move from one place to another using way to the convention experience on the roads. It could also lead to numerous occurrence of accidents within the urban area due to high spread risks. Also, there could also be some aspect of air pollution that comes from the fumes and exhausts form moving vehicles around the urban areas
Moreover, there is a lot of involvement of the public and private sectors in the problem. First, the public sector gets involved through the municipality that ensures all the roads are passable in the urban centers and can be used efficiently. The police could also be used to control the traffics around places thought to be many constraints of traffic congestion. The conflicting values contribute to the wicked nature as it is something that is commonly happening in the urban centers that do not benefit any organization and activities such as trade. There are thus many activities in the urban areas that are affected by this problem.
Works Cited
Rao, Amudapuram Mohan, and Kalaga Ramachandra Rao. “Measuring Urban Traffic Congestion-A Review.” International Journal of Traffic & Transport Engineering 2.4 (2012).
Tsubota, T., Tsubota, Takahiro, et al. “Arterial traffic congestion analysis using Bluetooth Duration data.” (2011).
Mund, Sumit K. Real-time analytics for urban road transport. Diss. University of Huddersfield, 2016.
Jain, Jain, Vipin, Ashlesh Sharma, and Lakshminarayanan Subramanian. “Road traffic congestion in the developing world.” Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Symposium on Computing for Development. ACM, 2012.