One thing that strikes me as I travel around the world is that cities/towns/villages are becoming unbelievably congested. After a long day of driving, I just love to arrive at a scenic town and hit the pavement searching for architecture and something good to eat. But, I've noticed that practically everywhere I go, city centers are packed with noisy, polluting cars and trucks that really stink up the place. They're ugly and create a mess. The closer to the center of town you get, the worse it becomes. The infrastructure on the edges of towns to support the growing population of vehicles is just really unbelievable. Its astonishing.
As the world's purchasing power increases, and used, cheap cars become more plentiful and more reliable, the situation grows even worse. I can't even imagine what the situation will be like 10 years from now.
Some cities, like Monaco, San Sebastian, Saigon, Amsterdam etc. have tackled the problem by the citizens adopting scooters and bicycles. In Amsterdam's case, this works well, but even scooters can be loud and are really not that attractive when they're parked a thousand deep.
Dean Kamen tried to solve the problem by inventing the Segway. While a good idea, it was really not practical, due to cost and limited carrying capacity.
I'd love to know everyone's thoughts on this. Its a big issue for me. I think nearly every place would be much more enjoyable if the streets were devoid of vehicles, and the roads were opened up to pedestrians and hardscape/landscape.
I believe the solution is a 2 lane electric walkway, like you see in airports, with a sidewalk and delivery path adjacent. The walkways would be about 4' wide, and move at slow or fast speeds, depending on the pedestrians travel needs (like an express lane). A concrete walkway would allow people to jump off to access destinations, or walk for exercise. Another concrete lane would be used for commercial deliveries.
Residents' vehicles could be parked on the edge of town, possibly in a very large robotic parking structure. Since they wouldn't need them as much, they could be accessed as needed by the moving walkway.
Thoughts? Yeah, I spend a lot of time thinking about this sort of thing
