Supplementary Reading

Tomorrow's Transport

Will the strips move at the same or at different speeds?

What will cities of the future look like? Town planners are thinking of new methods of construction and transportation.

What will city transport be like in 20 or 30 years? The moving pavement is one possibility. It consists of several strips moving along at different speeds. These escalators are moving in both directions along all streets. On reaching his destination the passenger steps over the slower strip and there to terra firma (неподвижная земля).

For convenience these moving pavements may be supplied with chairs, benches, vending machines selling soft drinks, ice-cream, candy and so on.

What kind of transport will bе forced out?

The first lines of such moving pavements should appear in the streets which have the heaviest traffic and are the most dangerous for pedestrians. In the beginning they will replace the older forms of city traffic only in certain streets, but then they will appear in a single system serving the centre of the city. Buses, trolley-buses and motor-cars will be forced out as the trams are forced out of the centre of many cities now.

What kind of cars shall we have in future?

What will the car of the future be like? It probably won't be red. Our response to colours isn't always the same. If you want people to stop when they see a car in front of them, yellow is probably the best. When you go for a drive in the car of tomorrow you will certainly know more about the road in front of you. Your car radio will tell you about the next corner before you can see it. It will pick this up from a wire under the road. When you stop quickly, the light that tells the man behind you to be careful will spread across the car. At the same time a bag in front of you will fill up with air to stop you hitting your head on the window.

What will the car of the future run on? Not petrol, which is dirty and noisy. In future we'll probably have electric cars. As a rule the electric car can only make a short journey before going back to the garage. Or steam cars. That too would be quiet and clean. But in England there is a farmer who has invented a car that runs on manure and he drives to London in it every week.

What are the advantages of a tube system?

Trains of the Future. What about long-distance travel? Consider the "tube-train" suspended and propelled by compressed air. ft may carry passengers on trips at 350 miles an hour. This idea is materialised in a 12-foot long model of a strange new aluminium torpedo train. The full-size train will run through an 18 foot-diameter metal tube, while big propellers pump the air from the front to the rear. A tube system has many advantages: a tube train makes little noise; a tube can be suspended, buried (зд. подземный) or even run through buildings.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-17