Step by Step 3000 第3册 Unit9:Public Transportation(2)

B. Keywords.

traffic jams, a growing trend, public transportation.
Vocabulary.

metropolitan, innovative, combustion.
You're going to hear a report on public transportation in the world, listen carefully, complete the outline below.
Today, the world's urban areas hold more than 4 times the population in the 1950.
Traffic is pilling up in nearly every major metropolitan area.
In Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, traffic jams last for hours while the economy loses an estimated 6% of output.
Many governments are promoting above and underground transit systems to fight such congestion.
The sounds of public transit systems are spreading throughout the world.
Urban trains are appearing even in the wide expanses of the Western United States.
In places like Dallas, a Texas city known for oil riches and big cars.
In Texas, we are not very used to riding a train to travel around the city. But actually, Dallas and Houston have both started light rail systems. It's very popular in both cities.
This is Brewster McCracken, a city council member in the Texas captial, Austin. Its citizens recently voted for a new public train similar to those in Dallas and Houston. The Austin plan will use existing railroad tracks already in place throughout the city.
What is happening in Texas reflects a growing trend elsewhere in the United States, says William Millar. He's president of the non-profit American Public Transportation Association.
In the last several years, public transportation in America has undergone a renaissance.
Voters across the United States are supporting pubic transit systems like the one in Austin.
What it shows is that the public in many places is ready to invest in public transportation.
But a majority of Americans still commute with cars, and most transportation funds are spent on building roads.
Alan Pisarski is a transportation consultant and author of commuting in America.
He says the excitement over public transportation in the America is an expression of people's frustration.
There is a lot of discomfort and unhappiness around the country about congestion and about transportation services in general.
In 1900, many US cities had extensive urban rail systems. But with the arrival of the automobile, most of them disappeared by the 1950s.
Now many cities are returning to what they had 100 years ago.
In other countries, riding buses, trains or subways are part of everyday life, many many countries support public transportation to a much greater degree than happens in the United States, particularly in Europe.
In other places in the world that are developing cities, there is a tremendous growth of investment in public transit.
In China, for example, city after city now is building metro systems.
Throughout southeast Asia, certainly the capital cities, over the last two or three decades, have built major rail systems.
Throughout south America, we see not only rail systems being built, but we see some of the most innovative use of public transit buses as anywhere in the world.
Rising levels of pollution from cars is leading to more investment in public transportation.
Mike Ashforth is a historian of London's underground system.
He says urban transport can help cities develop without spoiling the environment with excessive greenhouse gas emissions.
The main impact of the underground is that it can reduce the amount of surface transport which in many cities largely depends on the internal combustion engine.
The one advantage that electrically delivered urban passenger transport has is that it is relatively clean at the point of delivery.
It can also, of course, actually carry far more many people in terms of the amount of energy used.
Many analysts say the growth of public transportation does not challenge the automobile, but provides another choice to commuters.
As a rising number of people want to go to an infinite number of places at any time, public transportation maybe the answer.