I found this paper on alternative transportation.. it was just published April of '08.. what do you think?

Question

http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/big/CEETIreport.pdf

I feel like it is happening as we speak.. this is a positive step I believe.. its long but its an interesting read.. im sure you will like the way it starts.

Answer 1

i'm not impressed.

it's my guess that hybrids will be a major part of transportation.

all electric, rechargeable at home will account for most of the rest.

at some point, there will be computer controls that allow for cars to follow closely, at high speed.

just as we have commuter lanes now, we'll have high speed automated lanes, demarked only by painted lines.

the computer controls will sense the lines, and keep the car in bounds.

they'll also sense slow downs, so that the entire line will slow as a group when necessary.

when people need to either enter or exit the lane, the computer will control that process.

the challenge we have is increasing use, and facilities management, as we add cars, and change fuels.

the way we'll have to do that is with computers to increase the traffic density, and with hybrid fuel that can be used in the same way that gasoline is used today.

Answer 2

reading the summary, I'd say that it in ingenious way for some fantasizing engineering professor to get himself millions in grant money.

Something like that may happen someday.. but not in my lifetime.  It sounds like it's on par with the elevator to the moon.

American engineers need to quit chasing rabbits for a while & solve problems that we are facing with technology that already exists, or is not too far off in the future.

From the sounds of it, I'd place the costs at around a billion a mile.

How about just fixing the most efficient method of transportation that we have & making it work again... the railroad system!  Yeah, it's un-s**y nineteenth century technology, but it works.

Answer 3

I hate to burst your bubble, but this isn't exactly some spectacular new thing you've found.

That's not to say that the content isn't interesting or that the work they did wasn't important, but I do tend to get the feeling that you don't really know how and in what context to read this information.  Please do keep working on that and perhaps find several more of these types of documents if that's something that really interests you, though.

Answer 4

Do you really expect us to read 136 pages?  It's difficult to give any sort of answer other than, that is most wonderful idea for transportation and I plan on implementing it tomorrow.