I’ve posted this before but following on from my post this morning, this video from Disney in 1958 shows the kind of vision that has dominated our transport and land use planning for such a long time.
Some things mentioned in here have actually come true or seem close to doing so while others I’m very thankful that haven’t.
Now where’s my sun powered electro suspension car?
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“Now where’s my sun powered electro suspension car?”
Why it was rendered inoperative by the coal based pollution induced acid rain which eats the cars body away, and it can’t make any power to run the electro-suspension unit due to the decades long perpetual smogs, And thanks to those nuclear powered cars and road builder machines, its unsafe to walk outside anywhere now due to extreme radiation levels.
.
And sea level rise has drowned all those underwater highways, and last years 6 month long global warming induced snow storm knocked out a huge chunk of the roading network – possibly for good.
Thats what happened to it:-)
Hey, way cool! I trust Auckland Transport will have this ready soon!
jj
“Now where’s my sun powered electro suspension car?”
Steven Joyce and Gerry Brownless have just announced a 300,000 dollar research project into that, as it is the future of driving. For this reason, they see no need to waste 30 million on cycling or 300 million on PT, and will continue with the 3 billion roading projects they have got going.
I note how few users of the ‘roads’ there is. I suppose this is due the extremely high costs to the user. I would think only the top .5% of the wealthy are able to afford the luxury transport system. The .5%, however will succumb to poor health as they don’t have to expend any effort to move around.
They certainly wouldn’t stay that slim with carparking directly in the office, and conveyer belts at all the shopping malls. What a hideous future they wished for the in 60’s, and a future Brownlee and Key still seem intent on forcing on us.
Don’t be silly they have robots that take care of their bodily exercise needs while they sleep 🙂
Another fun Disney piece from 1950, on road rage: http://stroadtoboulevard.tumblr.com/post/83313690614/motor-mania-1950-disney-classic-on-road-rage
Interestingly, while we don’t have rocket-powered freight units, containerised transport has done most of the things predicted here. Fully automated freight movement will be big in future, and may give an edge back to rail – it will be some time before we have trucks capable of self-driving in traffic.
This is the closest I’ve come to seeing a living nightmare. A highway right beside the Sphinx!