In a recent Q&A session answered by Elon Musk in the Hyperloop Design competition for the college grads that happened in Texas. One enthusiastic grad, who has his origins from New Delhi, India voiced over the topic of ODD-EVEN decision for cars to operate in the city. Elon was asked on how the Hyperloop would answer to this problem and Elon Musk with his impeccable brilliance gave the audience the answer, " Well, I think people should build more tunnels instead of roads, you know.. they are just holes in the ground...."
Sparked by the though of this i wondered what is it that makes it so uncommon for us to complain about the roads and traffic congestion when Elon could come up with some new found idea. pondered by the though i came on to some things that i read an still got bewildered by the idea.
A few years back in an article from Gizmodo i read about what happens when one run out of land to work with and the resulting land grab and the exploitation of available ground would result in. Let me introduce you to city of Manhattan, the very famously known around the world as the New York.
You will start to wonder, "so you are here to say that we will run out of land and start to build road in the sea or increase the height of the land so as to make it higher the better( more like making pride rock) of one's own!"
No! that's not my point. The point is I further pondered in this topic and ended up reading an article from National Geographic,showing that the Central Park in Manhattan alone has been untouched in the Vertical level of the city. All the other Upper, Lower and Middle Manhattan has had its land filled over and over its base sea level over the century, that now cartographers from the 21st century are shell shocked to find drawings from the 1800s and before seem so illogical to the actual. The number is more that 15 Ft of land has been filled up, meaning that the urban spaces have now become more elevated than the central park's original ground level.
A prominent junction called Adyar Flyover ( Notice the fringes of asphalt that grew over the years) |
Each fringe of line is a new layer of road laid over the years ( possibly a few decades) |
Then on the search for why do roads get to be roads, who must have been the reason for it to be there in the first place, theses were all sparking up in my mind. Again, comes a theory of interesting reads in Wikipedia articles on cattle grazing pattern.
Great deal to smooth it out! |
Can you spot the Man-hole cover ? |
Why the heck do they bother to have a storm drain?? |
which resulted in me spending hours on to understand the concept of what the reason was for the first pathways to be made.. and then on it was made in to roads and finally in to highways.. it was all because of some cattle herder who took his flock on a grass terrain herd it of to roam around and ended up creating patches of land for people to walk and so on and so on.
It was pretty nice to read. Then again, as I wondered. Who is there to Bell the Cat?(on this 6 inch road topic), the people.. the Engineer.. the Miner who gave the Asphalt or the Mother Nature who gave me this topic to study on! or rather should I say, "Belled the Cow/Goat" on the right time by the herder. So that the roads of today would not have gotten in to the troubled hands of the people to be pestered with!
It was pretty nice to read. Then again, as I wondered. Who is there to Bell the Cat?(on this 6 inch road topic), the people.. the Engineer.. the Miner who gave the Asphalt or the Mother Nature who gave me this topic to study on! or rather should I say, "Belled the Cow/Goat" on the right time by the herder. So that the roads of today would not have gotten in to the troubled hands of the people to be pestered with!
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