...were one of the things I found interesting in the movie. It must be the only time(?) we see street level action on Earth in this time period. I'm ready to be proved wrong in many ways there. Anyways, there seemed to be metal strips running along the road from what I remember. I took it as a way that cars can drive themselves using these special roads if the driver wasn't interested in doing it themselves. Maybe there's more detail out there I could look up?
I really liked the city shots that we got to see of London. The 24th Century-era Trek seemed to depict a lot of Earth as being covered with super sci-fi-looking buildings all the time. I liked that London had a nice mix of old and new structures. Afterall, why would you demolish a whole city just to build a new futuristic city? It's not like those old buildings would suddenly stop being functional just because it's "the future."
I think the only actual metal-looking strip was along the side of the road for the trolley car line. There were also some slightly futuristic-styled crosswalk markings, but otherwise the street seemed fairly conventional. That doesn't mean it couldn't have technology embedded beneath it though. Besides, I would hope two hundred and fifty years in the future they wouldn't have less advanced driverless technology than the Google driverless cars that are being authorized for testing on public roads today.
Looking at those fugly cars makes me wonder when humanity lost it's sense of cool on Earth. Their spaceships are OK though. Of course I had forgotten San Fransisco is famous for the trams. Trams and Alcatraz, oh dear.
You would have thought the cars could at least hover above the road making everywhere pedestrian friendly and have elevated expressways for non local trips.
I actually prefer that they still use wheeled vehicles in addition to the occasional hover cars/bikes and aircraft. Ubiquitous hover cars make a nice joke when you're lamenting their lack of existence in the "future" year that you're now living in, but if put in practice they would be a nightmare. Think of how many traffic accidents, mechanical breakdowns, and intoxicated or sleepy or texting drivers (which could be alleviated with a driverless system, but only if they chose to engage or it or didn't have a choice at all) you see, and then imagine if all those people had control of their own airplane flying over densely populated areas. It would be raining cars. The only way to make sure this wouldn't happen is to create some kind of guaranteed multiple redundant system whereby even if all power was lost, every other system failed, or if the driver was an idiot, the car would never collide with another vehicle, pedestrian, or building and would just gently set itself on a clear patch of ground in case of emergency. Now, you'd think that would be possible in Trek times, but even if this film we see the Enterprise lose all power and fall to Earth, and a spacegoing military ship of the line would be a hell of a lot more finely tuned than your father's Oldsmobile. Plus, these people have cracking bridges, shifting gravity generators over giant pits o'doom, and a desperate need for surge protectors. OSHA would not be happy.
They look like Smart cars and Nissan LEAFs to me. The big one looks like that fugly Renalut van from a few years ago. The bronze one looks like a Honda Insight from the back. Now I agree that all of the above are hideous, I think it Abrams just asked the art guys to do a design-trend extrapolation projection.
In that case, you might not really have the resources to start building an ultra-futuristic city, what with more than half a billion dead, and so much destruction.
By the 24th century, 300 years have gone by since WWIII. More than enough time to build futuristic buildings to replace old ones that have been destroyed.