History Main / FuturisticSuperhighway

* JudgeDredd's Mega-City One includes a great number of different highway transit systems with average speed limits typically being over 200 MPH. The longest and widest of of these, the Superslab, is suggested as spanning the entire length of the city from north to south with a dozen traffic lanes in each direction. The very first strip in ''TwoThousandAD'' featured Dredd sentencing a criminal to Devil's Island--a prison set up on a large traffic island in the middle of the Big Meg's inter-city highway complex with no need for walls because busy traffic is constantly moving at speeds of up to 250 MPH all day and all night, guaranteeing instant death for anyone who tries to escape.

* The main character ends up on one of these in WilliamGibson's short story ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gernsback_Continuum The Gernsback Continuum]]''. It's described as something like "a 40-lane monstrosity."

[[NemesisTheWarlock http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Termight_7806.jpg]]
[[caption-width:315: The [[{{Pun}} Interstate]] is a [[MemeticMutation series of tubes]]!]]

--> --'''Dr. Emmit Brown''', ''BackToTheFuture''

-> ''"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads."''\\
-> --'''Dr. Emmit Brown''', ''BackToTheFuture''

-> ''"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads."''
--> --'''Dr. Emmit Brown''', ''BackToTheFuture''

* There's a decades-long traffic jam on New Earth in ''Series/DoctorWho''.
** It's revealed to have been [[spoiler:deliberate in order to save people from a plague]].

Likewise, various road vehicles tend to change with the times, as well. New fuel and engine technology can typically allow most vehicles to reach average speeds of upwards of a few hundred miles/kilometers per hour and freight trucks tend to be more than twice their normal sizes by today's standards. A lot of wheeled vehicles may also come with an AI computer on board that can drive the car by itself. Lastly, it goes without saying that [[FlyingCar a lot of future cars will also fly]].

With all of these new changes, it only makes sense that highways and major roadways and traffic patterns change with them. Usually, the most noticeable difference that can be observed almost immediately tends to be how mass-transit roads tend to be a lot wider to accommodate for the increased traffic in the future society; highways with more than 8 lanes to accommodate for two-way travel are not uncommon. Other advancements tend to incorporate magnets and magnetism in various ways to aid in a future car's ability to drive itself, maintain safe distances from other cars to prevent accidents, and/or allow cars to do impossible things like drive upside-down or vertically.

Naturally, for [[FlyingCar Flying Cars]], air-travel routes are specifically designed just for them, much like how there are for airplanes in the modern day. In more urban environments, travel routes for flying cars may be stacked on top of each other to allow access to and from different locations found at different altitudes throughout a future city.

Typically showcased a great deal in [[ChaseScene Chase Scenes]] in a future setting where they may double as SceneryPorn, they tend to actually function without there being many problems. There never tend to be many traffic jams, and even when there may be a disastrous motor accident or immense pileup on such roads, they very commonly always benefit from a SnapBack, especially in serial adventure stories where any major road disasters in one installment never hinder characters traveling along them in episodes immediately following it (and even when it would seem like a very difficult thing to fix with most vehicles traveling at speeds faster than it may conceivably take emergency services to arrive, cordon off an accident, and properly redirect traffic).

* In ''[[{{Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds}} Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's]]'', [[SeriousBusiness Duel Monsters has become so ingrained into society]] that there are entire separate lanes built onto highways for people who want to play [[MemeticMutation card games]] [[YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries on motorcycles]].

* JudgeDredd's Mega-City One includes a great number of different highway transit systems with average speed limits typically being over 200 MPH. The longest and widest of of these, the Superslab, is suggested as spanning the entire length of the city from north to south with a dozen traffic lanes in each direction. The very first strip in ''[[TwoThousandAD 2000 AD]]'' featured Dredd sentencing a criminal to Devil's Island--a prison set up on a large traffic island in the middle of the Big Meg's inter-city highway complex with no need for walls because busy traffic is constantly moving at speeds of up to 250 MPH all day and all night, guaranteeing instant death for anyone who tries to escape.

* ''BackToTheFuture Part II'' begins with Doc, Marty, and Jennifer arriving in the year 2015 inadvertently flying against traffic on a highway specifically designed for [[FlyingCar Flying Cars]].

* The ''StarWars'' prequel trilogy has the [[FlyingCar flying cars]] driving in seemingly designated "lanes" on Coruscant.

* In the ''[[IRobot I, Robot]]'' movie, automobiles all have automatic pilots, which are legally required to be activated when driving over certain speeds.

* There's a decades-long traffic jam on New Earth in ''DoctorWho''.

* Jon Armstrong's [[Grey]] and [[Yarn]] portray an enormous set of elevated highways spanning the globe, allowing specialized vehicles to drive from Europe to Antarctica in the space of a few hours.

* One of RobertAHeinlein's books, ''ToSailBeyondTheSunset'', mentioned in passing a network of high-speed superhighways where all of the cars were computer controlled to avoid human-error-induced accidents. At one point, a couple of characters mention the computer in their car was on the fritz, so they had to drive the old fashioned way, causing the trip to take far far longer.
** And let's not forget the classic Heinlein short story ''TheRoadsMustRoll'' where cars have become obsolete altogether. People and goods are carried on vast rolling belts that travel from one city to the next.

** In another episode, New New York's FuturisticSuperhighway undergoes roadwork. The billboard that explains this also says ''Alternate Route: Just fly there.''

* One of [[RobertAHeinlein Robert A. Heinlein]]'s books, ''To Sail Beyond The Sunset'', mentioned in passing a network of high-speed superhighways where all of the cars were computer controlled to avoid human-error-induced accidents. At one point, a couple of characters mention the computer in their car was on the fritz, so they had to drive the old fashioned way, causing the trip to take far far longer.
** And let's not forget the classic Heinlein short story "The Roads Must Roll" where cars have become obsolete altogether. People and goods are carried on vast rolling belts that travel from one city to the next.

* In ''[[{{Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds}} Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's]]'', [[SeriousBusiness Duel Monsters has become so ingrained into society]] that there are entire separate lanes built onto highways for people who want to play [[MemeticMutation card games on motorcycles]].

* ''[[{{Lensman}} First Lensman]]''. In the BigApplesauce of the future, Lensman Virgil Samms drives his gyro-stabilised two-wheeler onto the Wright Skyway, a limited-access superhighway with a maze of feeder ramps running all the way up the skyscraper he's working in, and higher (presumably exits for FlyingCars). The only problem is learning to ignore the bombardment of very noisy advertising.

[[caption-width:315: The [[IncrediblyLamePun Interstate]] is a [[MemeticMutation series of tubes]]!]]

[[caption-width:315: [[TheInternet The Interstate is a series of tubes]]!]]

* In ''[[{{Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds}} Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's]]'', Duel Monsters has become so ingrained into society that there are entire separate lanes built onto highways for people who want to play [[MemeticMutation card games on motorcycles]].

[[caption-width:315: The [[IncrediblyLamePun Interstate]] is a [[MemeticMutation series of tubes]]!]]

* In SergeyLukyanenko's ''Spectrum'', the main character goes to a planet of technologically-advanced HumanAliens and notes their FlyingCars and how one "highway" goes right through a big hole in a skyscraper. He shudders of humans one day trusting building supports and drivers that much.

Typically showcased a great deal in [[ChaseScene Chase Scenes]] in a future setting where they may double as SceneryPorn, they tend to actually function without there being many problems. There never tend to be many traffic jams, and even when there may be a disastrous motor accident or immense pileup on such roads, they very commonly always benefit from a SnapBack, especially in serial adventure stories where any major road disasters in one installment never hinder characters traveling along them in episodes immediately following it (and even when it would seem like a very difficult thing to fix with most vehicles traveling at speeds of over a few hundred miles/kilometers per hour, as mentioned earlier).