this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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I've always been fascinated by these things. When you think of the relatively miniscule amount of energy it takes for a cyclist to move along at 30km/hr, or an ebiker to move along at twice that speed, it's absolutely insane that we use 4000lb cars to move us just a bit faster still.
If we were all to drive around in 100lb electric velomobiles with speed limits capped at around 80km/hr, everything would work better. There would be fewer safety issues, road maintenance would become almost negligible, and traffic and parking would be largely solved
Obviously, highway vehicles and towing and delivery would all still be a thing, so this would need a completely separate road network and is basically impossible, but man are cars overkill for getting us from a to b.
or upon reading your comment what about more public transit like "cargo cyclebusses" where riders can pedal the bus, it could also charge batteries and be electric when needed, could carry multiple people and be ecofriendly and lower impact and possibly cheaper
In my perfect world, multilaned roads would be split up. Two or 3 smaller lanes would go to the ebikes and velomobiles, but since lanes are so huge on our current roads, there would still be space left over for full sized cars. Those would include busses, which would now be freed up with almost no traffic to become the quickest way to cover long distances (think one end of a sprawled city to another). It would also include the delivery vehicles and work vehicles with stringent licensing. Perhaps automatic plate checks for people headed to a highway road trip.
What you're describing would fit great on the ebikes roads though for short distance public transit, although the pedaling might be more for fun and exercise than a requirement, as they would need to serve people of all sorts of physical abilities. With slower speeds, would also be a great case for autonomous microbuses, which are being tested in various places.
Again, all a pipe dream, but the funny thing is is that we have all the infrastructure, technology, and vehicles (can start with golf carts) needed to achieve it extremely quickly if there was ever the will to do so.