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高速道路
高速道路
イタリアやドイツで始まった高速道路の建設は
世界でブームとなり、環境に大きな被害を与えた。
このままいくと地球はどうなるのだろうか。
The Superhighway
By DOUGLAS LUMMIS
Adolf Hitler once wrote, "All strategic roads were built by tyrants.
. . . They go straight across the country. All other roads wind like processions and waste everybody's time."
The first superhighways were built by two supertyrants: the Italian
Autostrades under Benito Mussolini and the German Autobahn under Hitler
himself. But the drive to build superhighways soon spread worldwide. After
World War II there was a freeway construction boom in all the countries of
the world that could afford it, and in some that could not.
This explosion in highway construction was not a result of the operation of
the free market. To cite an example that has become legendary, in 1938
Los Angeles had the world's largest streetcar system. General Motors, in
combination with Standard Oil and Firestone Tire, bought the company, shut it down, and tore out the tracks. Los Angeles was reconstructed as the
world's premier automobile metropolis.
It was there that the drive-in restaurant, the drive-in movie, the
three-car garage, the 17-car accident, the traffic jam and smog were invented. And all were broadcast lovingly to the world via Hollywood.
Today two-thirds of the land space in Los Angeles is devoted to the
operation and storage of automobiles. GM and its associates went on to buy
up streetcar lines all over the United States and close them down to make way for their own products.
But while the automobile manufacturers destroyed the rail and streetcar
lines, they did not build the highways to replace them. Imagine how expensive
automobiles would be if the manufacturers had to build and maintain the roads
on which their commodity operates. But, with the exception of a few toll roads, it is taxpayers who pay.
To take another example from the United States: In 1956 the U.S. Congress
authorized the construction of the National System of Interstate Highways,
initially funded at $25 billion (¥2.65 trillion) and eventually costing twice that. It was the largest public works project ever undertaken.
(Part of this project was carried out in the area where I lived then. The
crooked road leading east from San Francisco was replaced by a perfectly
straight one, by cutting off the tops of a row of mountains in the Pacific Coast Range and shoving the dirt into the valleys between. This project
involved more earth-moving than the Panama Canal.)
The result was a 40,000-plus mile (64,000 km) environmental catastrophe.
Vast amounts of wilderness land were bulldozed under by it. Where it is
guarded by wire fences it interdicts the migration routes of wild animals;
where it is not, it is an animal slaughterhouse. Wherever it goes, the air
is gray.
If you built a 48-lane highway around the Earth at the equator and put the
world's 350 million automobiles on it, they would be jammed together bumper to bumper. For those cars to move would require at least four times as much
space: a 192-lane highway.
If the automobile manufacturers have their way, in 50 years everybody in
the world will be in their car going someplace. But will there be any
"place" left to go?
Adolf Hitler once wrote, "All strategic roads were built by tyrants.
. . . They go straight across the country. All other roads wind like processions and waste everybody's time."
The first superhighways were built by two supertyrants: the Italian
Autostrades under Benito Mussolini and the German Autobahn under Hitler
himself. But the drive to build superhighways soon spread worldwide. After
World War II there was a freeway construction boom in all the countries of
the world that could afford it, and in some that could not.
This explosion in highway construction was not a result of the operation of
the free market. To cite an example that has become legendary, in 1938
Los Angeles had the world's largest streetcar system. General Motors, in
combination with Standard Oil and Firestone Tire, bought the company, shut it down, and tore out the tracks. Los Angeles was reconstructed as the
world's premier automobile metropolis.
It was there that the drive-in restaurant, the drive-in movie, the
three-car garage, the 17-car accident, the traffic jam and smog were invented. And all were broadcast lovingly to the world via Hollywood.
Today two-thirds of the land space in Los Angeles is devoted to the
operation and storage of automobiles. GM and its associates went on to buy
up streetcar lines all over the United States and close them down to make way for their own products.
But while the automobile manufacturers destroyed the rail and streetcar
lines, they did not build the highways to replace them. Imagine how expensive
automobiles would be if the manufacturers had to build and maintain the roads
on which their commodity operates. But, with the exception of a few toll roads, it is taxpayers who pay.
To take another example from the United States: In 1956 the U.S. Congress
authorized the construction of the National System of Interstate Highways,
initially funded at $25 billion (¥2.65 trillion) and eventually costing twice that. It was the largest public works project ever undertaken.
(Part of this project was carried out in the area where I lived then. The
crooked road leading east from San Francisco was replaced by a perfectly
straight one, by cutting off the tops of a row of mountains in the Pacific Coast Range and shoving the dirt into the valleys between. This project
involved more earth-moving than the Panama Canal.)
The result was a 40,000-plus mile (64,000 km) environmental catastrophe.
Vast amounts of wilderness land were bulldozed under by it. Where it is
guarded by wire fences it interdicts the migration routes of wild animals;
where it is not, it is an animal slaughterhouse. Wherever it goes, the air
is gray.
If you built a 48-lane highway around the Earth at the equator and put the
world's 350 million automobiles on it, they would be jammed together bumper to bumper. For those cars to move would require at least four times as much
space: a 192-lane highway.
If the automobile manufacturers have their way, in 50 years everybody in
the world will be in their car going someplace. But will there be any
"place" left to go?
Shukan ST: Feb. 11, 2000
(C) All rights reserved
- strategic
- 戦略上重要な
- tyrants
- 専制君主
- go straight across 〜
- 〜 をまっすぐに横断する
- wind like processions
- 行列のようにうねる
- supertyrants
- 強大な支配力を持った独裁者
- Autostrades
- オートストラーダ(イタリアの高速道路)
- Benito Mussolini
- (1883-1945)1922 〜 43年首相だったイタリアのファシスト政治家
- Autobahn
- アウトバーン(ドイツ、オーストリア、スイスの高速道路)
- drive
- 動き
- spread worldwide
- 世界的に広まった
- construction boom
- 建設ブーム
- 〜 that could afford it
- 高速道路を作る余裕がある 〜
- explosion
- 爆発的急増
- free market
- 自由市場
- cite
- 引き合いに出す
- has become legendary
- 語り草になっている
- streetcar
- 路面電車
- shut it down
- 閉鎖した
- tore out
- 引きはがした
- track
- 線路
- was reconstructed
- 再建された
- premier
- 最初の
- automobile metropolis
- 車社会である主要都市
- drive-in
- 乗り入れ式の
- three-car garage
- 車3台が入る車庫
- traffic jam
- 渋滞
- were invented
- 作り上げられた
- were broadcast
- 広められた
- via 〜
- 〜 によって
- is devoted to 〜
- 〜 に当てられている
- storage
- 収納
- associates
- 提携会社
- make way for 〜
- 〜 のために道をあける
- manufacturers
- 製造業者
- commodity
- 商品
- operates
- 動く
- toll roads
- 有料道路
- taxpayers
- 納税者
- U.S. Congress
- 米国議会
- authorized
- 認可した
- National System of Interstate Highways
- アイゼンハワー大統領の時代に全米で建設が開始された州間高速幹線道路網
- initially funded at 〜
- 当初 〜 の資金供給を受けた
- eventually
- 結局
- costing twice that
- その2倍のお金がかかった
- public works
- 公共事業
- was carried out
- 実行された
- crooked
- 曲がった
- a row of mountains
- 山並み
- Pacific Coast Range
- 太平洋沿岸の山脈
- shoving 〜 into 〜
- 〜 を 〜 に押し入れる
- dirt
- 土
- valleys
- 谷間
- earth-moving
- 土の移動
- Panama Canal
- パナマ運河
- 〜 -plus
- 〜 強
- catastrophe
- 破滅
- Vast amounts of wilderness land
- 広大な原野
- were bulldozed under
- ブルドーザーでならされた
- interdicts
- 妨げる
- migration routes
- 移動ルート
- slaughterhouse
- 食肉解体場(フェンスがないので動物が車にひかれて新でいる所)
- the equator
- 赤道
- they would be jammed together bumper to bumper
- 車が延々とつながって道をふさぐ
- have their way
- 思いどおりにする