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Wide bike paths on both sides of freeways, charging places for electric bikes every few miles and light rail down the middle of the freeway. There would only be three lanes
Wide bike paths on both sides of freeways, charging places for electric bikes every few miles and light rail down the middle of the freeway. There would only be three lanes
It really isn't a freeway, unless it provides for automobiles.
Although bicycles certainly have their fans and utility in a lot of circumstances, you still can haul your new electronics, a load of groceries and your 4 minor children on the back of your bike when you make your trip to Wal-Mart.
When we get self-driving cars, the freeways will be able to handle a lot more traffic and the computer driven cars will be able to go a lot faster.
Imagine the highway speeds at 90, with the cars just inches from each other.
Should be pretty amazing to watch with our 2015 eyes.
I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I'm almost certain that non of us will ever see that with our 2015 eyes. Self-driving cars will no doubt be appearing, but not in numbers great enough to have any real impact on traffic. Before a situation like you describe can become a reality, there are a lot of issues that would have to be worked out.
Like what happens when all those vehicles are traveling 90 mph, inches apart from each other, and a defective wheel falls off a truck and crashes through the windshield of a car in the next lane, setting off an endless chain reaction accident. Even computers can't stop cars fast enough to prevent a disaster in a situation like that.
I really think self-driving cars are the next Segways. Just a small niche product, for the foreseeable future.
It really isn't a freeway, unless it provides for automobiles.
Although bicycles certainly have their fans and utility in a lot of circumstances, you still can haul your new electronics, a load of groceries and your 4 minor children on the back of your bike when you make your trip to Wal-Mart.
Maybe your dream is for the distant future,
A lot of new freeways are being designed with other modes as part of the project, bike paths running parallel included.
Quite frankly, your counter-argument is false, an aside from the subject of freeways, and nonsensical. For one, a cyclist probably wouldn't make purchases using the same mindset as a driver, as cyclists make smaller trips, but do so more often, and use online purchases and/or delivery services for big items. For another, cargo trailers for bikes certainly would allow an intrepid individual to make a big purchase at WalMart and haul it all home; if it is too large for a cargo trailer, it is probably also too large for a car and anything but the largest SUVs or minivans and, as such, the argument becomes moot. Finally, how a person does or does not use their bike is an aside from the construction of bike paths as part of freeway projects.
We will probably have to go to open road congestion tolling to control the level of congestion in urban areas. While self-driving cars would make driving more bearable and allow for more capacity in light traffic conditions, they wouldn't actually reduce the congestion. Population still increases, and the trend is more people moving in to the largest metro areas. Presumably all these additional cars will park remotely, adding even more to the traffic volume. No way we'll all be doing 90 at rush hour on urban freeways! We could, however, reduce the speeds in urban surface roads and actually decrease travel times with better "green wave" light synchronization and a smart grid. But in the end the more complex things become, the more things break down (accidents, network interruptions, software bugs, hacks), and the bigger the impact when the system does break down. Freeways work amazingly well...except when they don't.
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