Motorways Help People Travel Quickly And Cover Long Distances But They Also Cause Problems | Band 8 IELTS Essay Sample

Motorways help people travel quickly and cover long distances but they also cause problems. What are the problems of Motorways and what solutions are there?

Here is a band 8 IELTS essay on this topic written by one of our students. Need help with IELTS writing? Get your IELTS essays, letters and reports corrected by me.

Band 8 IELTS essay sample

Motorways are designed with the objective of helping people reach their destination quickly. However, they do have many drawbacks such as environmental impacts and inconvenience to pedestrians.

The main problem caused by express highways is that they effectively divide the land on their left and right into two as pedestrians or animals cannot cross these roads from one side to the other. Traffic can enter and exit only at special places. This can have serious consequences for people living near them. For example, their school, office or market may be on the other side of the road, and they cannot simply cross it to reach those places.

Another downside is the environmental impact. These highways cut through mountains and forests to reduce travel time. Unfortunately, this hurts the environment and wildlife. Also, when high speed roads are built in delicate topography, the risk of landslides increases. Buiding such motorways also requires a huge amount of money and resources and in some cases, they may not be worth the investment.

As for the solutions, well, they need to be implemented before these motorways are built. Once, they are built, there is not much that can be done. Before building such express roads, authorities need to ensure that they do not separate people from the places they routinely visit. If highways only pass through sparsely populated areas, these issues can be solved to a great extent. Limiting impact on the environment is important too. As far as possible, such highways should not be built in eco-sensitive areas.

To conclude, saving time is essential and motorways play a crucial role in helping people achieve this objective. Even so, the downsides of these high speed roads cannot be neglected.  In my opinion, motorways should be built only when the benefits significantly outweigh the downsides.

Manjusha Nambiar

Hi, I'm Manjusha. This is my blog where I give IELTS preparation tips.