Transportation

What Happens to All the Salt We Dump On the Roads?

In the U.S., road crews scatter about 137 pounds of salt per person annually to melt ice. Where does it go after that?

Drivers Are Doing Something Besides Driving Ten Percent of the Time

Simply talking on a cellphone, however, did not increase the risk of an accident or near accident for drivers - so long as their eyes stayed on the road

London's Looking at Building Bike Lanes in the Sky

The dedicated bike lanes could improve some commuter's trips by nearly 30 minutes

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have discovered a way to turn a small mixture of algae and water into a kind of crude oil in less than an hour.

Scientists Turn Algae Into Crude Oil In Less Than An Hour

Researchers believe they have figured out a way to make a promising biofuel that is cheap enough to compete with gasoline

The tracks and individual cabins of a new train would be built so that, as the high-speed and local train move alongside each other, a link can be secured momentarily, creating a transfer gate for passengers to get on and off.

This High-Speed Train Picks Up Passengers Without Having to Stop

It's possible to let passengers board trains through separate cars that latch on, but who will take the risk to make it happen?

Tvilight, which automatically dials down the brightness when no one is around and restores maximum radiance upon detecting the presence of oncoming human activity, has been installed in cities in Holland and Ireland.

Clever? Smart Street Lamps Light Up Only When Needed

The Tvilight lighting system is designed to dim when no one's around, saving cities as much as 60 percent on energy bills each year

Comprised of more than 500,000 Lego pieces, this yellow-and-black hot rod can be driven at speeds of up to 17 mph.

Watch This Air-Powered Lego Car Cruise Down A Street

A Lego-maniac builds a life-sized working car made from more than 500,000 plastic toy pieces

Automatic is designed to collect and relay vitals such as the distance, duration and fuel costs for each trip.

This Device Can Save You Money On Gas (And Maybe Even Your Life)

The Automatic Smart Driving Assistant is designed to warn drivers when they accelerate too quickly and make other fuel-costly choices

Hövding is a helmet cyclists wear on their necks—not their heads.

The Bicycle Helmet That's Invisible (Until You Need It)

Riffing off of airbag technology, Swedish designers have created a helmet, worn around the neck, that inflates during an accident

This Wheel Turns Your Bicycle Into An Electric Hybrid

The Copenhagen Wheel can be snapped onto just about any bicycle to boost your pedaling power by up to 10 times

Main waiting room, Pennsylvania Station, New York, NY, circa 1910

How Nostalgia Plays Into Our Love of Buildings Old and New

Never-before-seen photos reveal that Penn Station wasn't as pristine as we remember when it was torn down

Interactive map courtesy of ESRI. Text by Natasha Geiling.

See Why China's New Highway System is an Engineering Marvel

In this series of satellite photographs, see the impact of the massive growth in transportation infrastructure

Traveling in pods through tubes. Is this what Elon Musk has in mind?

L.A. to San Fran in 30 Minutes? Can You Say Hyperloop?

Entrepreneur Elon Musk thinks bullet trains are too slow and expensive. He says he has a better idea: high-speed travel in tubes

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The National Automated Highway System That Almost Was

In 1991, Congress authorized $650 million to develop the technology that would make driverless cars a reality

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Nobody Walks in L.A.: The Rise of Cars and the Monorails That Never Were

As strange as it may seem today, the automobile was seen by many as the progressive solution to the transportation problems of Los Angeles

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The History of the Minivan

The iconic car changed the way families drove

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Postwar Dreams of Flying in Style

The Northrup Flying Wing promised a luxurious experience for the air traveler of tomorrow

Floyd Smith, patent 1,462,456 for a parachute pack and harness, 1919

An Early History of the Parachute

It wasn't a military expert or an aviation pioneer, but a Russian actor who developed the first viable parachute

A colored print of La Minerve

Hot Air Balloon Travel for the Luxury Traveler of the 1800s

Visionary designers of the 19th century believed that the future of air travel depended on elaborate airships

George crawls into a pneumatic tube which will transport him to Mr. Spacely’s office (1963)

George Jetson Navigates a Series of Tubes

Travel by pneumatic tubes? The idea was seriously considered in the 1960s

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