It might seem logical at the first glance to agree with the author's argument in which the proposed traffic lane would support reducing the traffic volume at the rush hour. The author of this argument relies on what might be less credible and even unproven assumptions to support his/her claim that I will distinguish them below.
To begin with, the first problematic issue regarding this argument is that the author mentions that a satisfactory proposal motorists lobby is to widen the highway through adding a traffic or bicycle lane along the road. The point is that no evidence is offered about the road's geographical location. Whether does have enough capacity to be widened? What if the road becomes widen? whether it reduces the traffic congestion and at what volume? Does building a bicycle lane have any positive effect on traffic jams and what will be the rate of usage? To strengthen his/her argument, the author should accrue benefit from answering these types of questions.
Additionally, the argument relies on a weak analogy. The author notes that constructing a new traffic lane last year along the Green Highway increased traffic congestion on it, therefore an alternative choice can be building a bicycle lane on the Blue Highway. the author does not consider the direction of roads. It might be possible that the Green Highway direction is toward a busy city while the Blue Highway is from the suburb area to the city center. Importantly, the author assumes that the situation observed of the Green Highway in the last year is remained unchanged while we can not cite the last year's data. For these reasons, the assumption made by the author made weaken his/her argument.
lastly, the scope and validity of the argument are not clear. The author mentions that many residents are keen cyclists, therefore establishing a new bicycle lane would encourage them to commute by bicycle. We are not informed about the statistics of these keen cyclists, Whether they are young children or young people? How does the author know that many people like bicycles, maybe they compel to bike one due to lack of an automobile? Hence, building a new bicycle lane will never encourage them to use it more. These statistics should be clear to make data reliable and valid.
To recapitulate, despite the argument suffering from several problems and is unconvincing, we can not absolutely rely on it or refuse it without pursuing any additional assumption and reasoning. the author can strengthen his/her assertion by changing states referred to the mentioned solutions. Without these changes, the argument is implausible and the reasoning is faulty.