transportation

When A Self-Driving Car Meets An Indecisive Cyclist

Self-driving cars are getting closer and closer to our own driveways. But before they make it there, they still have to figure out how to navigate through some tricky city driving situations like this one, when a self-driving car meets an indecisive cyclist on the road. In this new video, Google explains how they’ve been…

How Google’s Self-Driving Car Is Tackling the Chaos of City Streets

We’ve all heard about how well Google’s self-driving car does on the highway. But is that so impressive? Heck, put on cruise control and an audiobook, and any car seems like it can drive itself on an Interstate. The latest update from Mountain View, however, suggests that this miracle vehicle is entering a new phase…

A 1956 Plane Crash in the Grand Canyon Made Flying Safer for Americans

In 1956 two planes collided over the Arizona desert, killing all 128 people on board and scattering the debris deep inside the Grand Canyon. This week, the National Park Service designated the crash site a National Historic Landmark—even though they don’t actually want you to go visit it. At the time, the tragedy was the…

Adorable Tokyo Metro Posters Remind Passengers to Be Polite

Since 1974, Tokyo’s Metro has created cute, quirky posters for their subway system to remind passengers of proper etiquette. Each fiscal year they roll out a new set of characters as the ambassadors of good manners, and for 2014 they’ve just revealed a new mascot (he’s the lion in the center poster). New posters appear…

Photos: When Southern California’s Freeways Were New (and Empty)

The Southland’s freeways hardly inspire optimism anymore. Glance at the shoulder of a slow-moving freeway and among the weeds you’ll see shards of plastic and twisted metal—the accumulated detritus of a dozen high-speed crashes. They may (occasionally) be convenient, but whether it’s their shabby appearance, the way they balkanize communities, or simply their soul-crushing traffic,…

23 Amazing Soviet Visions For The Future of Transportation

Tekhnika Molodezhi, or “Technology for the Youth,” is a Soviet and Russian monthly science magazine that’s been published since 1933. Like its U.S. and French counterparts, Popular Mechanics or the Le Petite Journal, the magazine is famous for its spectacular covers—often depicting fantastic scenes from the possible future. Zhrunalko–a russian site devoted to rare Soviet…

L.A.’s First Public Transit Used Actual Horse Power

Public transportation was slow to arrive in Los Angeles, a city whose farthest reaches were still accessible by foot in the 1870s. But as the city began to stretch out over the surrounding landscape, some form of regular, wheeled transportation around town became a practical necessity. And in the beginning, horses provided the power for…

Watch a Parade of Trains Celebrate L.A. Union Station’s 1939 Opening

Built shortly before the dawn of the Jet Age, L.A.’s Union Station has been called the Last Great American Railway Station—one final monument to rail transportation’s heyday. Judging by a newly digitized color film, the city celebrated its grand opening on May 3, 1939, with appropriate fanfare. Nearly half a million Angelenos came out for…

9 Transportation-Related Jobs That Only Exist In Certain Cultures

Would you get paid to act as a third passenger in a vehicle so the car could drive into a congestion-restricted area? How about signing up to pack people into crowded subway cars? Dress up as a zebra and walk the streets, preventing cars from running red lights? These are actual gigs which you could…

The Zeppelin Train, The Aerotrain And Other Classic Streamlined Trains

Long before there were bullet trains and high-speed light rail systems, people experimented with creating super-streamlined trains that could whisk people across the country in Googie splendor. In some alternate universe, these streamlined trains of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s are still in service. We already showed you some strange railway systems and monorail systems…

A Subway Map of Every Highway and Interstate in the U.S.

We all wish the United States had better trains. (If you don’t, you should.) That’s why this subway-style map of every U.S. Highway and Interstate in the country is so much fun. You can almost imagine heading down to your local stop for a quick jaunt up the East Coast. If only… The impossibly detailed…

Lost in a Maze of Abandoned Stations Beneath the Streets of Barcelona

The always interesting urban exploration crew at Trackrunners have assembled all of their various trips down beneath the streets of Barcelona into one long super-post, an epic catalog of all things lost and subterranean in that Spanish coastal city. The details are many, and they are awesome—from the long-exposure laser-like lights of passing trains to…

7 Ingenious Trains That Slide Up the Slopes So You Don’t Have to

Walk? Like up that giant hill? Yeah, no. This ain’t the 15th century, we have funiculars for that now. In fact, here are seven of the swankiest ground-based gondolas to ever put the “fun” in “climbing steep-ass inclines without breaking a sweat.” Wait, What the Hell Is a Funicular? A funicular is a mechanical, ground-based…

This building vaguely shaped like a jack is actually a proposed transportation hub and residential complex for the New York borough of Queens. Perched above the 7 subway line, the spiky structure would combine a spiraling internal concourse with conveniently shaded yet sunlit apartments. [designboom]

It’s Utopia Week at Gizmodo

Utopia is one of the most loaded words in the English language. Utopia is perfection; utopia is unachievable; utopia is no place. Which is precisely what makes it so interesting. And why this week Gizmodo is taking a look at all things utopian. Utopian thinking also happens to be the backbone of futurism. Why bother…

Linking the World’s Highest Cities With The Longest Urban Cable Car

La Paz is situated at a whopping 3,650 meters above sea level in Bolivia. El Alto, the country’s second biggest metropolis, is located 500 meters above that. Now a new cable car system linking the world’s highest cities made its public debut, allowing tens of thousands of commuters to bypass congested roadways for a sleek…

That Beeping Sound You Hear Is The Future

Today’s modern automobile often comes with high-tech crash-avoidance systems. Parallel parking is a breeze when your car beeps to let you know when you’re about to hit something. The people of yesteryear couldn’t have imagined something like that, right? Think again. In today’s edition of There’s Nothing New Under the Sun, we have a Jazz…

This Tiny Plane Just Flew Using Fuel Made Out Of Seawater

This scaled-down replica of a World War II-era fighter plane may not look so unusual on the outside. But inside of the engine is something exceptional: a fuel made with a new process using seawater. The plane, and the fuel inside it, are the work of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, who announced that they’ve…

L.A. Once Had Cable Cars (Just Like San Francisco’s)

They used to be more than just a San Francisco novelty. In the late 19th century, cable cars were a widely used public transit solution in cities across the United States—including Los Angeles. There, they replaced the city’s first generation of streetcars, horsecars, and brought real estate development to previously inaccessible terrain, encouraging the growth…

Is An Airbag For Your Head Really Safer Than A Bike Helmet?

Remember Hövding, the Swedish bike helmet released a few years back that looks like a stylish, poofy collar and supposedly inflates like an airbag upon impact? In a new video, the company explains more about how it works—claiming it’s actually much safer than a traditional helmet. The video goes over the basic Hövding tech: 200…