雅思听力:交通题 堵车的感悟

Tapescripts：

Professor: Thank you. Well, I know you're all very familiar with the super highway here in Melbourne. But do super highways automatically lead to super wealth, as our politicians would have us believe? I think not.

Tutor: Can you give us an example of what you mean exactly?

Professor: Sure .. . well, by continuing to encourage this dependence on the motor car, we simply create more congestion and more urban sprawl. And you can see that here in Melbourne right under your nose.

Student: Excuse me. I would just like to say that I feel the sprawl is part of the city. The freeways mean people can enjoy the benefits of living away from the centre .. . on larger blocks with gardens .. . but still be able to drive back

into the city centre for work or entertainment.

Professor: Well I'm not convinced that people want to do that. And is our money being well spent? It may be OK for you now but come back to me in five years' time! Let's take City Link, for example, the new freeway here in Melbourne,

Student: Well .. . I use the freeway all the time. I think it's great.

Professor: Ah yes, but it cost $2billion to build, and you could have gotten ten times the value by putting the money into public transport. If you give the automobile road space, it will fill that space ... and you'll soon find you'll be crawling along your City Link.

Tutor: But surely, you cannot simply blame the car. Some of the blame must rest with governments and city planners?

Student: Well there is an argument, surely, that building good roads is actually beneficial because most new cars these days are highly efficient - they use far less petrol than in the past and emissions of dangerous gases are low. Old congested roads, on the other hand, encourage traffic to move slowly and it's the stationary cars that cause the pollution and smog ... whereas good roads increase traffic speeds and thus the amount of time cars are actually on the roads.

Professor: Well ... this is the old argument put forward by the road lobby but, for me it's clear cut. Roads equal cars which equal smog. Public transport is the way to go.

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