UNIT 4 LISTENING PRACTICE

CD Track 31 (Ex 2.2) (Page 26) / Britain’s transport problems / Part 1
a)pollution / b)stress / c) standstill
d)productivity / e)contributes / f)effects
g)environmental / h) particular / i) especially

So Britain’s roads, and ______those in the southeast, are overcrowded. There are too many cars on the roads, and at ______times of the day and at particular places, traffic is either very slow or at a ______. Now this has had a number of ______. Firstly there is the economic effect, all the time wasted in traffic jams, which means a loss of ______. Then there’s the ______effect. Cars produce a lot of ______, which damages the local environment, but it also ______to global warming. And there’s also the effect on people’s health. In addition to the poor air quality and the damage this causes to people’s lungs, the ______of being struck in traffic each day leads to a higher risk of heart disease.

CD1 Track 32 page 27 / Part 2
a)measures / b)solution / c)integrated
d)improving / e)solution / f)generally
g)worsens / h)researchers / i)widely

So how do we deal with this problem? It is ______accepted among ______and policy makers that there isn’t just one simple ______. For example, it’s ______agreed that simply building more roads is not the ______, as research shows that this just leads to an increase in traffic and, in the long term, it ______the problems I have just described. So what is needed is a whole range of ______aimed at ______the transport system, which is referred to in the UK as ______transport policy.

CD1 Track 32 / Part 3
a) issues / b) integrated / c) policy
d) addressed / e) improvements / f) investment
g) environments / h) transport / i) consultation

In 1997 the government carried out a major public ______on the UK’s ______. One of the main ______was how we can encourage car drivers to use pubic transport. The first point is that just making ______to the public transport system will not be enough to get drivers to use buses or trains. We can provide more buses and rains so that these are less crowded, and we can make them cleaner, safer ______to travel in, and all this will need more ______of course, but even if we do all this, drivers will still prefer to use their cars.

CD1 Track 32 / Part 4
encourage / car-sharing / experimental
congestion charging / measures / designated
localized solutions / recognized / measures

So, as I said, it is ______that we need a package of ______to reduce the number of vehicles on the road. Here are some examples.

The government is trying to ______, so, in some ______projects on crowded roads, lanes have been ______for use only by cars with more than one occupant; CCTV cameras are used to police the trials. The thinking is that if people believe they can get to work more quickly by driving in this faster lane, they are more likely to share cars.

In London, ______has been successful; cars are charged to enter a central zone and again CCTV cameras linked to a computer system are used to ensure compliance. The effect has been that there are fewer cars in what used to be the busiest part of London, but in addition, the income from congestion charging is then invested in London’s public transport system.

Well, these are just two examples of fairly small-scale, ______to the problem, but to sum up the point I made earlier, a whole range of measures attacking the problem from different angles is more likely to be successful than one ‘big idea’.