Dedicated Cycling Lanes: Encouragement or Disruption?
A complete IELTS General Training Writing Task 2 question with a model answer of 306 words, plus a breakdown of the sentence structures, cohesive devices and vocabulary that answer uses. Write your own version first, then compare.
Written by Manish Sharma · CELTA and DELTA qualified · 8 years teaching IELTS
Score my answer to this questionThe question
You have 40 minutes. Write at least 250 words.
Some people argue that cycling should be encouraged in cities by building dedicated cycle lanes. Others believe that these lanes take up valuable road space and disrupt motor traffic. Discuss both views and give your own opinion. Write at least 250 words.
How to approach it
- 01Discuss both views in separate body paragraphs before stating your opinion
- 02Use real city examples — Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Paris — to anchor your arguments
- 03Acknowledge the strongest counterargument honestly rather than dismissing it
- 04Use comparative and consequence language: 'outweigh', 'lengthen', 'as a result'
- 05Make your opinion clear in the introduction and reinforce it in the conclusion
- 06Keep paragraphs focused — one controlling idea per paragraph
Model answer
306 words in 5 paragraphs. Read it after you have written your own, not before: the point of a model answer is to show you what you missed, and you cannot miss anything you have not attempted.
As cities across the world struggle with congestion and air pollution, the debate over whether to build protected cycle lanes has become a defining urban issue. While drivers often complain that such lanes squeeze the road space available for cars, I believe the long-term benefits of dedicated cycling infrastructure clearly outweigh the short-term inconvenience to motorists.
Supporters of cycle lanes make a powerful case. Cities that have invested in continuous, protected lanes — Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and increasingly Paris — have seen cycling rise sharply as everyday transport, not just leisure. This shift reduces overall traffic volumes, cuts harmful emissions, and lowers the rate of serious injuries to cyclists, who previously had to share lanes with buses and lorries. There are also health benefits: regular cyclists are statistically less likely to suffer from heart disease and obesity, which lightens the burden on public health systems.
Critics, by contrast, argue that cycle lanes take precious road space from cars, lengthen journey times for delivery vehicles and emergency services, and can sit empty for much of the day. In dense city centres, removing a traffic lane to install a protected cycle path can genuinely cause initial congestion and frustrate residents who rely on driving for work or family reasons. These concerns are real and deserve to be addressed rather than dismissed.
In my view, however, the disruption is typically a transitional phase. As infrastructure improves and more people switch to bikes, overall traffic eases — a pattern repeatedly documented in transport studies. Properly designed cycle lanes also include loading bays, bus access, and safer junctions, so the inconvenience to drivers is far smaller than opponents claim.
In conclusion, although dedicated cycle lanes can disrupt motor traffic in the short term, they create healthier, cleaner, and ultimately less congested cities, and cities that hesitate to build them will fall behind those that do.
What this answer actually does
Measured from the text above, and compared against the other 69 answers of the same type in this library. These are counts, not band scores: they describe what the writing does, which is the part you can copy.
15 more than the median answer for this task type
8 words at the shortest, 36 at the longest
2 more than the median answer for this task type
carry a subordinate or relative clause
Sentence rhythm
Sentences average 23.5 words and vary by 8.3 words either side of that, running from 8 words to 36. Variation is the point. Grammatical Range and Accuracy rewards a mix of simple and complex sentences, and an answer where every sentence is the same length reads as flat no matter how correct it is. 8 of the 13 sentences here carry a subordinate or relative clause.
The cohesive devices it uses
8 in total, spread across 2 different functions. Range matters more than count: an answer that opens every paragraph with a sequencer signals its structure but never signals a relationship between ideas, and Coherence and Cohesion is marked on both.
by contrast, although, however, while
in conclusion, ultimately, overall
Vocabulary and repetition
Ignoring grammar words, 82 per cent of the content words in this answer are distinct, and 71 per cent appear exactly once. Lexical Resource is where repetition costs the most marks, and the usual cause is not a small vocabulary but reaching for the same noun every time the topic is named.
The longest run of words copied straight from the question is 3 words. Examiners discount wording lifted from the question, so a short run here is the right outcome: the answer restates the topic in its own words rather than borrowing the question's.
What you are marked on
All four criteria carry equal weight, and your Writing band is their average rounded to the nearest half band.
Task Response
Discuss both views fully and give a clear, consistent opinion
Coherence & Cohesion
Logical structure with effective discourse markers
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary on transport, cities, and the environment
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
Range of complex sentences with consistent accuracy
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