#17 - In order to relieve traffic congestion, the city of

[James Finch]

Hi Anthony,

The problem with your logic in choosing (B) is that it requires assumptions to be made; the correct answer choice on a Resolve the Paradox question like this won't need any additional assumptions. So we have to be looking for the one that most completely explains the situation, allowing the existing facts to remain correct, without needing any assumptions to be made. Prephrases can help, although this is admittedly tricky stimulus to do so.

The first thing to think about here is what the facts given in the stimulus are implying. The first sentence appears to be saying that there is now more direct access between Gastner's suburbs and its downtown, which could imply more traffic coming into the downtown than before. The second sentence tells us that the commute time for workers in the downtown area has increased; these workers may or may not be coming from the suburbs, they may simply have to deal with more traffic coming in from the suburbs, slowing down their commute times from areas closer to downtown. So what would best explain this situation? I would Prephrase something along the lines of "the new highway has brought more traffic to downtown, leading to lengthier commutes for downtown workers."

Answer choice (E) fits that Prephrase pretty well, if we think it through. Remember, the stimulus is talking about all downtown workers, not just those coming in from the suburbs, so while they might have faster commutes, the greater amount of traffic could be slowing down everyone else enough to raise the average commute time.

Hope this clears things up!

[anthonychernandez]

Hi James, thanks for the clarification, and yes, that does clear it up. In some ways, E is very simple and straight forward which made me strangely be skeptical of it. Re-reading it and re-thinking it, E stands out clearly as correct.

(Also, it's a good example for me where when I had chosen B as an answer, it didn't feel right and instead of changing and re-thinking it, I stayed with it. Good lesson going forward to trust those types of intuition.)

[ali124]

Hi Powerscore!
I understand why (E) is correct but I am having trouble ruling out (A). I would appreciate some help.

Does "workers in downtown Gastner" refer to workers who live and work in downtown? I thought the phrase can refer to all workers that work in downtown (including those that commute from the suburbs) and thus (A) could explain their increase in average commute (assuming that people who used to commute through a different road or through some other means have started driving on the highway to take advantage of it).

Thank you so much!

[James Finch]

Hi Ali,

"Workers in downtown Gastner" applies to all people who work in that area, not just those who live in the downtown area. This is a big clue as to where the correct answer choice may be going, as it indicates that we don't know the proportion of workers coming in from the suburbs. Based on the stimulus alone, all workers in downtown might live in or near enough to it that they would never use the highway, but the highway's being built may have spurred more tourists/daytrippers and thus increased overall traffic congestion downtown. In fact, this was my Prephrase for this question, which ends up being fairly close to the correct answer choice, (E) (both get at the idea that the roads downtown would become more congested after the highway opened).

(A) would exacerbate the paradox in the stimulus, as the highway should decrease commute times for commuters coming in from the suburbs. So if most workers are now coming in from the suburbs, it does nothing to explain why their commute times would increase, particularly since the highway was explicitly built to decrease at least some of their commute times.

Hope this clears things up!

[Albertlyu]

thank you all for your insights, I narrowed it down to C and E, and eventually picked C because it contains "road connecting to the new highway" whereas in E: roads "near" the new high way can mean they are parallelled roads with totally different places of departure and destinations, which means these roads can be completely irrelevant to commuting to the downtown area, and the traffic conjestions in these roads have no impact on the commute time of the workers whatsoever.

I was pretty sure when I picked C and moved on to the next one. The correct answer choice suprises me, please can anyone help?

thanks

AL

[Adam Tyson]

Happy to, Al! First, the problem with answer C is that the suburban roads were upgraded, which means they were made better. Why would better roads in the suburbs mean longer commutes for people who work downtown? Even if some of those downtown workers are coming from those suburbs, shouldn't upgraded roads mean an easier commute? You might think "new stoplights" could mean more time stopped, but it could also mean less time waiting to get through an intersection, and it could also mean those new stoplights are more efficient than any older ones they may have replaces. Basically, answer C explains the problem only if you add some outside assumptions about what impact those new stoplights must have had on commuters to downtown, and it's just as easy to assume positive effects as negative ones. Maybe easier, since they used the word "upgraded."

As to answer E, it looks like you may have missed a key element of that answer. Those roads are not just near the highway; they are "in Gastner’s downtown area." Those aren't roads used to commute TO downtown - they are IN the downtown area! If roads downtown are more congested, for whatever reason, that could explain why commute times for downtown workers increased.

[Albertlyu]

Happy to, Al! First, the problem with answer C is that the suburban roads were upgraded, which means they were made better. Why would better roads in the suburbs mean longer commutes for people who work downtown? Even if some of those downtown workers are coming from those suburbs, shouldn't upgraded roads mean an easier commute? You might think "new stoplights" could mean more time stopped, but it could also mean less time waiting to get through an intersection, and it could also mean those new stoplights are more efficient than any older ones they may have replaces. Basically, answer C explains the problem only if you add some outside assumptions about what impact those new stoplights must have had on commuters to downtown, and it's just as easy to assume positive effects as negative ones. Maybe easier, since they used the word "upgraded."

As to answer E, it looks like you may have missed a key element of that answer. Those roads are not just near the highway; they are "in Gastner’s downtown area." Those aren't roads used to commute TO downtown - they are IN the downtown area! If roads downtown are more congested, for whatever reason, that could explain why commute times for downtown workers increased.

Thank you Adam for your patience and thorough elaboration!

Yes, I later found out that I did misread a key element that those roads are not just near the highway, but inside the downtown areas which explains the increase of the average commuting time for workers who work in the downtown area.

thanks again, have a good night!

Albert