4 thoughts on “History of the Future of Transportation, T. Carroll

  1. Tim,

    Wonderful job telling a story as opposed to simply spewing out facts about what people thought the future would be like in the early 20th century. Your speech is clear, direct, and conversational. I found myself repeatedly wanting to chime in with my own responses and get engaged with the presentation. I certainly was able to able to grasp the ‘big picture’ ideas regarding the overcrowding of cities and how cities became large and densely populated. Your association with Kranzberg’s 2nd law is spot on. There are numerous instances throughout the presentation in which you explicitly list how the 2nd law can be applied: the vision to create “levels” of transportation throughout cities, the combination of electricity and the railroad to enable trains to travel above ground, and how the overcrowding of cities eventually led to a middle-class exodus away from the cities (the first instances of suburbia). I am impressed by your ability to simultaneously provide the reader with quality illustrations and engaging dialogue that keeps the listener focused and interested. Your story of transportation of the future is cohesive and easy to follow. I am glad I watched the video to learn about the concept of ‘rat race’ or what we would refer to as modern-day rush hour. Of course, I am especially fond of the fact that you incorporated flying cars into your presentation and noted the integration of these two technologies. Overall great presentation! Well done.

  2. Tim,

    Hey! Great job with this! I not only learned about the history of transportation visions of the future I also enjoyed listening. There is a comedic and personable element to your slide-cast that I enjoyed very much. The last quote of the presentation: “History of technology….stuck in traffic” was a great way to summarize the whole thing. From what I got out of it the presentation was broken down into multiple parts. One being commentary on the two ideas which are, better modes of current transportation, or the second, combining current modes of transportation. Another being the response to the booming population and issues of overcrowding of cities. These I thought were very interesting. Your commentary on the pictures helped prove the points you were trying to make and also illustrated the whole retrofuture visions well.
    Overall there really is not much to change, I think you have a well laid out presentation, good facts and relations to class, as well as a non monotonous form of communication. The extra eight seconds at the end I think was fine, you traded time for good information.

  3. Tim,
    Great job with your presentation. I honestly do not know what to complain about. I thought that the pace you spoke at was perfect and it was extremely easy to understand. The points that you made about the futuristic outlook on travel was a topic that I thought I knew a decent amount about, but your presentation was still able to teach me a few new things. I really did like how you were able to present the change in thought chronologically, but the way you went about discussing them, made it very easy to understand the similarities and difference between the past era and the-then current era. I also liked how you integrated Kranzberg’s law into your presentation. Although I wish you spoke about it more, your idea of traffic being an output of the car and city was an extremely valid and interesting point to make. Overall, it was a very good and well thought out presentation, nice job!
    -Josh

  4. Tim!
    Awesome job! I’d like to first congratulate you on your ability to speak in a clear, conversational manner with a tasteful addition of humor (I’m very jealous). This is a great project. Your progression from slide to slide was spot on. One of my favorite parts of your project was the transition from cars to car-friendly trains to car-friendly supermarkets to car-friendly everything. I really liked how you set up the presentation to focus on the concepts of same-technology-but-better, two-in-one inventions, and Kranzberg’s second law and then stuck to them. I specifically enjoyed your use of Kranzberg’s second law to explain the social context surrounding predictions of the future of transportation. The invention of the automobile had many intended as well as unintended consequences. You focused on traffic, but it would be interesting to explore other consequences and what technologies they fostered (this is not a critique of your presentation, just my mind wandering). Your choice of images was thoughtful and relevant. Despite my best efforts to nitpick, I have no critiques for you. Keep doing what you’re doing for the final project.

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