Step by Step 3000 第3册 Unit9:Public Transportation(1)

Part 2. Public Transportation.
A. Keywords.

electric streetcars, up, cost, environmentally friendly, human desire.
Vocabulary.

clang, rattle, crisscrossing, ridership, feasibility, pine for, jangle, prestige, soothing, serenity.
A1. Listen to a report about the revival of streetcars. Supply the missing information.
In 1888, Boston, Massachusetts, became the first American city to replace horse-drawn trolleys with electric streetcars.
Streetcars, which look similar to train passenger coaches, clanged their bells, rattled around corners, and carried almost 14 billion riders at their height in 1920.
Old photos show overhead wires crisscrossing almost every US city.
Then streetcar ridership declined steadily as American took to automobiles and communities replaced trolleys with buses. But now it seems cities can't lay streetcars tracks fast enough.
So why is the number of US cities running streetcars and other light rail systems now up to 19? Why are 43 other cities building or drawing plans for light rail lines?
Dan Tangherlini is acting director of Washington D.C.'s Transportation Department.
Many cities are beginning to re-evaluate that decision to move away from streetcars.
We look at current bus ridership numbers, and many of the routes that have the highest bus ridership were some of our most popular streetcar routes.
So there goes the notion that the buses are providing increased flexibility, at least on those roads.
And so maybe there is something between the very expensive subway systems which cost between 140 and 200 million dollars a mile, and the bus route. And that's what we're beginning to ask.
Streetcar lines cost less than 10 million dollars a mile to build.
Washington is the latest city to announce it is studying the feasibility of bringing back streetcars, even though it already enjoys a fast-moving regional subway system called Metro that runs through several parts of the city,
Across country in Washington D.C, Bill Lind works for a conservative think tank called the Free Congress Foundation.
The organization has printed several studies supporting light rail transit, including streetcars.
The old rationale for getting rid of the streetcars is that they get in the way of the automobiles.
But what we found is that the automobile, generally with one person per car, is probably the least efficient way to use the limited amount of space you have on urban streets.
If you've got 50 people on board a streetcar, you're doing a lot better job of making use of the street space you have.
Even if Washington's transit department gets the green light to bring back streetcars, it's likely to be at least ten years before Mr Lind and his neighbor will be riding them.
The city has to secure federal funding for a large chunk of the work.
Citizens who say they pine for the old trolleys may lose their nostalgia when they realize the cars will be jangling past their windows or slowing their automobile rides across town.
But across America, streetcars and light rail trains are curiosities no longer.
They're a prestige item, tangible proof that a city is environmentally friendly on the move and in touch with the human desire, in the midst of today's bustle and speed, for a streetcar's soothing touch of serenity.