I thought long ago that a cool solution is a drive-up train.
You setup specially equipped flatbed cars for safety, a row of
ramp/parking/loading docks, and load the whole train at intervals with
sets of commuter cars. You then just park and ride until your stop.
I had this idea when I was a teenager, decades before I ever rode on a
train or plane. They came through little towns where I lived pretty often.
This could be done now and give you most of the benefit of the electric
car/train gizmos, although it is a cool idea in the long run.
In the grand scheme, sharing actual vehicles is not attractive except in
the high dollar rental business where there is cleaning, maintenance,
and direct payment for damage. True sharing is only for a small
percentage of people and fraught with the same difficulties that sharing
apartments or houses presents.
sdw
Karl Anderson wrote:
> Bill King <BillK@opendesign.com> writes:
>
>
>> On Monday, March 12, 2001 7:09 PM, Wayne E Baisley wrote from Chez Baiz:
>>
>>
>>> Someday, there will be a global vehicle routing system that will allow
>>> my car to drive me anywhere that I might want to go (or at least to the
>>> popular destinations), much fasterly and saferly (comparative adverbs,
>>> you understand) than I could do myself, and that can even adjust for
>>> most unexpected events like black ice and suicide drivers, while I read
>>> or talk with the fambly. Then I'll be interested in lightweight.
>>
>> Here's an article about a proposed "RUF" train. You use your own little
>> electric car to get to the freeway, then link up as part of a "car train".
>> Hands free, talk on the phone, Internet access, take a nap, etc, while
>> you're part of the train.
>>
>> http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/03/09/ruf.car/index.html
>
>
> Yay, public transportation without the icky smelly public. This will
> be the anthrophobe's dream when you get to work and dock your car into
> the office. Never interact with a potentially annoying human being
> again!
>
> We do have these things called trains, already. And we do have piles
> of cars sitting in parking lots around the trains, as well as
> successful carsharing companies that can put these cars to use. That
> would take care of at least 80% of the users of this crock of crap.
-- sdw@lig.net http://sdw.st Stephen D. Williams 43392 Wayside Cir,Ashburn,VA 20147-4622 703-724-0118W 703-995-0407Fax Dec2000
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