Goodbye Traffic Jams and Mega-Airports?

• Position: Science fiction sriter Frederik Pohl forsees the end of traffic jams and huge airports - Brief Article

Traffic jams and large airports will disappear within 150 years, along with other familiar aspects of today's culture, according to science fiction writer Frederik Pohl. "Airports may be one of the first things to go," he told the World Future Society, Bethesda, Md.

Aircraft manufacturers will apply technology that is now in use by the military in order to build fleets of commercial airplanes that can take off and land vertically on runways less than a city block long. As a result, giant airports that sprawl on the outskirts of large cities will be replaced by smaller ones within urban areas, Pohl predicts. Air travelers interested in a quieter ride with spectacular views will board a new generation of zeppelins that will become the luxury liners of the sky.

Traffic jams will disappear because a new high-speed surface transportation system will connect major cities and small...