Commuter Cars. Tango! Rhymes with Mango, one of my SNL idols. We need to start making these things here, in Cleveland. We've got the setup and we've got the workers. Check out the George Clooney news release from this past April at the site, and also the WIRED Magazine article here.
If we all started driving things like these, and taking the bus, we could drastically reduce the size of ODOT staff once we saved billions of dollars in scrapping wasteful highway broadening projects. We need to start thinking of saving our heritage from demolition, saving our dollars now, and protecting the interests of future generations of Clevelanders, Ohioans, Americans.
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I, for one, would like a smaller car, something akin to a Tango or SwatchSmartCar may be too small, a bit more than a glorified motorcycle it would seem.
ReplyDeleteI suppose it does create truly personalized transportation, but at what cost?
Although my car is labeled as a five passenger ('98 ford escort), I don't think I've ever had more than four and for most trips, it's just one passenger, one driver. So, right now we have lots of large cars carrying around one or two passengers. It's always amused me that 95% of an auto's power is used to move the car(cass) sans passengers.
If we move to one/two passenger Smart/Tango type cars, does the use change too? Will people still use car to haul stuff? Or will people have three Smart/Tangos instead of one Ford Ranger? I suppose the price of the micro car might be a factor.
Regardless, a compelling idea worthy of discussion.
I was thinking that we'd probably own a local "errands" or short-hops type car for use where the bus and rapid transit don't go, ride mass transit when possible and plan our usage, do business and light shopping near the mass transit lines, have an old van or pickup for nasty work, and rent a good touring car when needed. We'd be less impulsive, more planned, time-blocked, and efficient. We'd also use laptops or tablets to fill the time productively we now use being our own drivers, much as NYC commuters do now.
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