Nowadays, transportation is a necessity in our lives. It is what allows us to move around. But, not many of us really pay attention to transportation or traffic patterns. Observing transportation trends can be good leisure time activity; since it enables you to learn a lot about how traffic patterns change and how they differ from country to country. We decided that this would make a good topic for an essay for the Mosaic Teen Summer Program activity.

While Dongook lived in Seoul, Korea; he did not really feel any difficulty when he wanted to go to places. Getting from place to place was facile because public transportation, metro or bus stations were not that far so you could just walk to a metro and get on a public transport to reach a destination. In addition, some places were near so much so that he did not need to take any type of transportation! For example, Dongook walked to school every day and also, was able to get things from nearby stores. People in his country preferred to use public transport because compared to the price of taking a taxi, the fee for using a public transport was cheaper. Also, they did not have to wait long for the bus and the actual time it took to reach destination did not differ much from taking a taxi. Another hindrance was the age limit to drive a car along with hefty expenses, The bus covers a vast area too and so people choose to ride a bus!

Ben’s experience in Guangzhou, China, however, was very singular. He feels that China’s transportation is chaotic. He recalls that there were too many cars, cyclists, and pedestrians. Also, he remembers that car drivers turned whenever they preferred, making the road a mess. Honking was a routine. He believes that car accident rates were high in addition to pedestrian accidents since he remembers that there were many jay walking pedestrians. Comparing his experience from Guangzhou, China, to here he considers Washington D.C’s transportation very systematic and orderly.

Alex says that his experience in Jamaica was a lot different. In Jamaica, the main modes of transportation are walking and taking taxis. Walking was chosen for small distances. Walking was both safe and quick, making short distance travel efficient in Jamaica. For longer distances, taxis were preferred. Taxis were very plentiful, driven by the demand from tourism in Jamaica. The large supply of taxis made waits for taxis short. All the taxi drivers drove quickly, so slight reduction in safety is compensated by faster travel. While transportation in Jamaica is slightly unsafe due to high speed taxis and the plentiful number of pedestrians, travel is both fast and efficient, factors favored most in any country’s transportation.

Analyzing the above and arriving at a conclusion we all seem to agree with the fact that Seoul seems to have the most efficient and safe modes of transport. The combination of short walking distances, neatly laid out city planning, and the efficiency and easy availability of public transportation at a cheap fare has makes Seoul easier cities to travel in. Jamaica, while not as safe as Seoul, has much faster transport available than Seoul. Alex felt that time to get from start to destination was the most important factor, even at the cost of safety, and we kind of disagreed on that obviously! China was the worst of the three locations. China had a huge population, consisting of cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers, making the traffic situation a drag to move around. Transportation was both slow and dangerous due to the sheer number of people on the streets and the varied means of transportation that one witnessed on the roads.

Alex Sofela, Ben Dippelsman, and Dongook Eun