🚀 go-pugleaf

Mike Donovan <mdonovan@airswitch.net> writes:
> Will mass transit ever become the dominant form of transportation in
> the US?

It depends what you mean by "mass transit".  Since moving people in a
group is inherently less convenient for those people than moving them
individually, it seems logical to expect that advancing technology and
improvements in the standard of living will lead to a lower, not higher,
level of mass transportation.

There is, however, the potential for transportation systems whose
infrastructure is more similar to today's mass transit than to today's
personally owned vehicle, but which deliver much more convenient
transportation for the individual.  It's hard to predict the success of
such systems.

Personally, I'd bet on smart cars and smart roads.  A few
microprocessors would enormously increase the capacity and speed of our
existing roads.  The technology isn't there yet, and deploying it will
be hard, but it's hard for me to believe that it won't happen.

                                        David desJardins