While safety improvements might have been made to our streets in recent years, transport studies also show declines in pedestrian(行人) mobility, especially among young children. Many parents say there’s too much traffic on the roads for their children to walk safely to school, so they pack them into the car instead.

Dutch authors Thalia Verkade and Marco te Brömmelstroet are bothered by facts like these. In their new book Movement: How to Take Back Our Streets and Transform Our Lives, they call for a rethink of our streets and the role they play in our lives.

Life on city streets started to change decades ago. Whole neighbourhoods were destroyed to make way for new road networks and kids had to play elsewhere. Some communities fought back. Most famously, a Canadian journalist who had moved her family to Manhattan in the early 1950s led a campaign to stop the destruction of her local park. Describing her alarm at its proposed replacement with an expressway, Jane Jacobs called on her mayor(市长) to champion “New York as a decent place to live, and not just rush through.” Similar campaigns occurred in Australia in the late 1960s and 1970s as well.

Although these campaigns were widespread, the reality is that the majority of the western cities were completely redesigned around the needs of the motor car. The number of cars on roads has been increasing rapidly. In Australia we now have over twenty million cars for just over twenty-six million people, among the highest rate of car ownership in the world.

We invest a lot in roads that help us rush through, but we fail to account for the true costs. Do we really recognise what it costs us as a society when children can’t move safely around our communities? The authors of Movement have it right: it’s time to think differently about that street outside your front door.

1.1. What phenomenon does the author point out in paragraph 1?

A Cars often get stuck on the road.

B Traffic accidents occur frequently.

C People walk less and drive more.

D Pedestrians fail to follow the rules.

解析：选C。细节理解题。第一段提到行人流动性下降，很多家长因路上车辆太多，不让孩子步行上学而是开车送。这体现出“人们步行减少、开车增多”的现象。故选C。

2.2. What were the Canadian journalist and other campaigners trying to do?

A Keep their cities livable.

B Promote cultural diversity.

C Help the needy families.

D Make expressways accessible

解析：选A。推理判断题。第三段指出加拿大记者Jane Jacobs领导运动阻止公园被高速公路取代，呼吁市长让纽约成为宜居的地方而非只是快速通行的通道。由此可知，她和其他运动发起者的目的是让城市保持宜居性。故选A。

3.3. What can be inferred about the campaigns in Australia in the late 1960s and 1970s?

A They boosted the sales of cars.

B They turned out largely ineffective.

C They won government support.

D They advocated building new parks.

解析：选B。推理判断题。第四段提到尽管这类抗争运动很广泛，但大多数西方城市还是围绕汽车需求被彻底重新设计。由此可推断，澳大利亚的相关运动最终也基本没起到效果。故选B。

4.4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A Why the Rush?

B What’s Next?

C Where to Stay?

D Who to Blame?

解析：选A。主旨大意题。全文围绕城市街道过度偏向汽车通行、忽视行人需求展开，最后呼吁重新思考街道功能。A选项“Why the Rush?”（为何如此匆忙？）暗含对城市过度追求通行速度、忽视宜居性的反思，契合文章主旨。故选A。