What Will Our Future City Roads Be Like?
Depending on who you ask, or what science fiction franchise you’re a fan of, a debate on what cities of the future will look like brings on many different opinions. Some say it will be a carbon/fossil-fuel free utopia, while others are convinced we shall all live in some version of Blade Runner’s Los Angeles. One fact remains: According to a United Nation’s study, 70% of Earth’s occupants will be city dwellers by 2050. Man, I sure hope SEPTA gets on the ball by then or we’re all screwed.
Already the highways & byways of many North American metropolitan areas have undergone the stress of people flocking into the city, and commuting about it daily. Plans are in place to construct new types of superhighways, and instead of merely placing 10×10 lanes across a mass of land, developers are looking up…and down. Engineers are looking into building stackable (stackible?) highways; think of the George Washington Bridge but on the scale of New Jersey’s Turnpike. These “green roads” will be built using recycled materials, even containing pieces of former automobile tires, and will be designed with accompanying ped. crossing and bike lanes. Nighttime lighting will come from solar-powered LED lights, implanted on the ground much like current reflectors.
Another theory, though much bleaker, will have all humans forced to live in quarantined zones underground. Again, our future highways would be built from recycled materials, but this time out of necessity. In this case, a simple fender-bender or car fire would bring that entire district to a halt. Whether it be green living stacked on top of one another or tunnel commutes to the office, the future of road design and materials will all be determined on how humans treat one another, and nature, for the next half-century.
Pictures via io9.com
Sep 28th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
[...] the year 2050 we may have 70% of the population living in cities, which would explain why we’ll all be driving converted Chevy Aveo’s like the ETV: [...]