The Golden Gate Bridge joins the beautiful city of San Francisco with the suburbs to the north. Each day, about one hundred thousand automobiles cross the bridge taking people to and from the city. Fully half of them cross the bridge during the morning and evening rush hours; with traffic so heavy, the trip is hardly a pleasure.
Now, however, there is at least one group of happy commuters. These are the people who travel under the bridge instead of on it. They go to work by boat and enjoy it so much that most of them say they will never go by car again.
The ferry (渡船) they take is the roomy, quiet, comfortable “Golden Gate”. Commuters can enjoy the sun on deck. In the morning they can have breakfast in the coffee shop, and in the evening they can order a drink in the bar while watching San Francisco’s famous skyline and the nearby hills.
The trip takes only thirty minutes and is not very costly. But best of all, being on a boat seems to make people friendlier toward each other. There has already been a marriage of two commuters who met on the “Golden Gate”.
Because the experiment has been successful, there are plans to use other, still larger boats. There is also a proposal for a high-speed boat that will make the trip in fifteen minut