Transportation!

Everyone knows I'm a huge transportation geek; and lately I have found so many exciting transportation opportunities that I can't keep them all to myself. I'll address three here, but there are so many more, I feel that the opportunities for transportation how you want it, when you want it, are all over, and we just have to learn how to take control of it!

First, let's talk about road trips. Most people in America take at least one road trip in their life (this is a generalized statement based on conversations with my friends, I did not use any data to come up with this). As I have gotten older though, and gotten rid of my car, the idea of a road trip seems so expensive and like such a hassle. I love driving on the open road, but I'm not going to rent a car to do that, nor would I want to own a car just for the purpose of the occasional desire to go on a road trip. This website (Auto Driveaway) provides a way around all of that. It does require a deposit from drivers, but it would be very interesting to drive someone's car from their current home to their new one through a semi-safe system. I was reminded by a friend that this is also an option through Craigslist, but that seems a little bit sketchy for me. This company could provide the safe middleman feeling not provided by Craigslist, and I think they must provide some sort of roadside assitance/solution for breakdowns that Craigslist definitely doesn't supply. There aren't too many people on the site yet, but once (or if) it takes off this could be an awesome way to get a cheap vacation in. You would still have to pay for gas and put down a deposit in case you break something major in the car, but that is a lot cheaper than renting a car and paying for all of those things, especially for the duration of a cross-country trip. And you wouldn't have to drive the car back home as you would if you owned the car, so it solves the problem of only having one week for vacation but wanting to get somewhere interesting on a road trip. I think this is something I will definitely have to try!

Second, who doesn't love the idea of bike share? It's a good way to have a bike in the city, but not have to deal with maintenance of your own bike or worrying about the bike getting stolen (I recently had a friend lose her bike this way) and so many other things. It's also an awesome way to see a city you're vacationing in. In Chicago the system doesn't totally work yet, but it's getting there soon. Washington, DC has a good version, and many people use it to travel around the city. However, there's a new innovation in San Francisco that might be a good option for hilly cities (or lazy people maybe?) and longer distances. Scooter share!  A group of young city dwellers decided they wanted to provide the freedom of bike share with the excitement of riding an electric scooter! Scoot Networks allows members to rent a scooter for $10 per hour with a $5 per month membership fee. They do require that you wear a helmet (California Law) but you don't need to have a motorcycle license, so most people could participate in the activity. I definitely think I want to try this out next time I go to San Francisco. The hills there might make me shy away from a bike share option (I'm used to biking on the flat streets in Chicago, almost to the lazy point of hating an overpass over a major freeway because it's too much of a hill for me) but this could be really fun!

Third, I'm going to look a bit into the future, at self driving cars. I know a lot of people have seen the video of Google's self driving car and, if they are like me, have imagined the simplicity of combining the freedom of a personal vehicle with the relaxation of a transit system (yes, I think it's relaxing to not have to think about traffic all the time and read or space out on public transit). This article is a really interesting point about it, these cars will probably not replace the traditional car, and why would they? If I had a driverless car I wouldn't ever want to pay for parking, the car could go find free parking by itself, or park back at home, or could be used by someone else while I don't need the vehicle. These vehicles could start replacing taxis, and paratransit, and possibly even low-ridership bus routes. Further, once these are easy to access and are able to provide affordable transportation to people around the country or world, more people may opt to use them instead of their own personal vehicles. These vehicles provide the exclusivity of a personal vehicle, by enclosing you in your own space and not forcing you into the public, but would not have to be privately owned. The opportunity for carpool companies to spring up also arises as these cars could return to a central location after taking many workers into their offices and for overnight storage as well as maintenance. I think there really is something to driverless cars, not to mention that they can follow much closer to each other allowing for more vehicles to use the same roadway space, but that wouldn't start being obvious until they are more widespread!

That's my transportation inspired rant for the day, so if you need to ship a car use Auto Driveaway and if someone asks you to help support driverless car research, please do!

R