NEW PARADIGMS OF MOBIILTY

Driverless cars are changing everything about urban mobility. Uber has raised billions of dollars to work with. The former head of world transit recently observed that cities being "invaded" by new mobility entrepreneurs.

Self-driving cars change the paradigms of personal, community, service and corporate operations. Delivery of restaurant and shopping items is possible with robo-carts: experiments are underway in Santa Monica. Tomorrow’s smart taxi and shuttle services will operate in new ways that should lower the cost of taking a cab. Ride-sharing flourishes, Who know what lifestyles will be in 2020, let alone 2030 and beyond?

Podcars extend the reach of metro stations.

Even with a temporary reprieve from high gasoline prices, we see over the horizon a world where fuel-burning vehicles are passé --  like dial telephones wired to the wall. People young and old today are getting less ego satisfaction and more frustration out of the burden of owning a personal vehicle. Today, it is a necessity to be a full participant in US life. But the costs! The hassles! The dangers! Owning a car hardly seems worth it for more and more people.

No wonder many are kissing off the drudgery, renting when needed, and seeking the advantages of living in neighborhoods where walking and biking are safe and easy. There taxi and bus services are more available, and distances to travel are shorter. And maybe in the future a pod-station will anchor a local community hub.

Ripple Effects in the Urban System

If a large shift in mobility patterns were to happen, the places we want to get to (for work, shopping, socializing, sports, worship, and back) will need fewer parking spaces. Landscaped trails and gardens can replace parking lots. New housing, perhaps with no parking requirements, will appeal to those without cars. With modest funds, community volunteers and creativity, your part of town can create landscaped pedestrian networks and tame traffic.

Nodes of density will become more commercially viable clustered around pod-stations. Car-free citizens will walk and bike more. They will take transit more. Most adults uninterested in kids don’t want to live in suburbs. Most seniors don’t want the isolation of remote retirement communities. We all want to be close to other people, stores and happening places.

Systems of mobility can work together,

Podcars Mean Car-Free Living

Podcars are available to expand our mobility options, making young and old go car-less. This may seem impossible in today’s auto-addicted America. Well, a comparable paradigm shift happened about a century ago when the rich and middle classes got rid of the carriages and horses. Urban America sprawled out into suburbs and exurbs and mega-regional hubs, drunk in the 1960s and 1970s on cheap gas and the mobility of cars. Now it’s not so cheap. The friction of space is still there.

Automating cars won’t immediately reduce traffic. It does, however, do something much more important: automated mobility lessens the need to spend, on average, $10,000 a year to own and operate a personal car.