Only a few people in Toronto have the luck to live within walking distance from their workplace. For the rest of us, commuting(乘车上下班) is a rather unpleasant daily necessity.

So how do you avoid a traffic jam in Toronto? You can do it in the old way and listen to one of the radio stations that give regular updates about the traffic situation in Toronto's streets. Seeing the big picture of Toronto's traffic and knowing when and where heavy traffic occurs is a must. From my own experience, there are situations where a quick decision can help you make it in time for an event or a meeting. That's why we prepared three short videos showing the overall traffic situation in Toronto from dawn to night. You can click them and watch.

With the help of “Google Maps”, where you can watch the live traffic density all over the world and average traffic data based on past conditions, we were able to provide you with traffic maps for a typical(平常的) Friday.

Friday traffic in Toronto is quite fast in the early morning, with only a few hot spots showing up at the major junctions(交叉点) at 7：00 a. m. The morning traffic jam starts light at 7：30 and the traffic gradually slows down to reach a breaking point at 8：30. The roads are quite free afterwards, only Allen Road is likely to be jammed around lunchtime from 11：30 a. m. to 12：00 noon. It comes as no surprise that Friday afternoon brings heavy traffic as early as 1：00 p. m., mainly on the Don Valley Parkway. You won't have a good time getting away from the city from 4：00 p. m. to 6：30 p. m., as there is a good chance to get caught in a traffic jam. The traffic in Toronto is quite heavy on a Friday night. I hope you will have a nice Friday night in the city and a safe journey home this Friday!

When you walk on a sandy beach, it takes more energy than walking down a sidewalk, because the weight of your body pushes into the sand. It turns out that the same thing is true for vehicles driving on roads.

"The weight of the vehicles creates a very shallow indentation（凹陷）in the pavement, and it makes it such that it's continuously driving up a very shallow hill," said Jeremy Gregory, a scientist at MIT. He modeled with his teammates how much energy could be saved, and greenhouse gases avoided, by simply hardening the nation's roads and highways.

And they found that hardening 10 percent of the nation's roads every year could prevent emissions equal to 440 megatons of carbon dioxide over the next 5 decades—that amount is equal to how much CO2 you'd spare the planet by keeping a billion barrels of oil in the ground or by growing 7 billion trees for a decade. It reduces 0.5% of projected transportation emissions over that time period.

As for how to harden roads, Gregory says you could combine small amounts of certain fiber with high technology into paving materials. Or you could pave with specially-made concrete, which is harder than ordinary construction materials.

This system could also be a way to shave carbon emissions without some of the usual barriers. "Usually, when it comes to reducing emissions in the transportation department, you're talking about changing policies related to vehicles and also driver behavior, which involves millions and millions of people---as opposed to changing the way we design and preserve our pavements. That's just on the order of thousands of people who are working in transportation agencies." And when it comes to improving our streets and highways, those agencies are where you might say the rubber meets the road.

Passengers could soon be flying off to holiday destinations or island on a pilotless plane. So far, online travel agency Kiwi.com has partnered with Czech airplane technology company Zuri to develop a concept plane that could fly completely unmanned.

The plane, which is expected to carry up to four passengers, would have a wing span of roughly 11 meters and would weigh only 900 kilograms. Autonomous aircraft and technologies of such kind could really help cut costs for airlines by reducing the number of crew and opening up the potential option of a single pilot operation.

Developers hope the prototype will be able to fly up to 698 kilometers, which is the distance between London and Germany. It would use vertical(垂直的) take-off and landing technology, which means the plane can land vertically, so not as much space as a regular plane is needed, meaning you could land in more places.

Its design combines the advantages of helicopters and aircraft, with electrically driven rotors(旋翼) that allow vertical takeoff and landing. The plane would be ideal for travelling between islands as customers wouldn’t need to worry about changing from commercial flights to boats, taxis or car rides.

Oliver Dlouhy, CEO and Co-Founder of Kiwi.com, said: “The Zuri project represents a direction that I see as key in the future of transport. Combined with the global transportation network, it will bring completely new chances for travelling by adding thousands of smaller cities into the airport’ catchment areas.”

But pilotless or single pilot operation of airplanes won’t be easy in an industry where at least two pilots in the cockpit(驾驶舱) are required. Many airlines around the world made this a rule after a pilot flew a plane into the French Alps in March 2015, killing all 150 people on board. What’s more, it’s also unclear whether passengers would accept or permit it.