Cost of gasoline, worldwide- Good thing we bike

[Crankin]

Our public transportation system is in the throes of financial crisis, at the same time that ridership is increasing quite quickly. There have been all kinds of public forums where riders and now major employers are speaking out about the cuts being proposed. People are willing to absorb a fare increase at this point. Our transit system is quite inexpensive compared to other major cities. This morning I actually heard that one of the proposed cuts would be on one of the lines that serves the Longwood Medical area, i.e. Brigham and Woman's, Dana Farber, Children's Hospital. Those employers have a ton of clout, so we shall see.
Change happens very slowly here. There are a lot of people who depend entirely on public transportation, too. Not sure what's going to happen in the end.

[shootingstar]

Even when my parents finally bought a car, they made sure each time they moved from 1 home to another, that the home was within a 15-min. to public transit.

All of my siblings have acquired homes in very different areas of Metro Toronto and even for those who have cars(1-2 cars per family), they each bought a home within 15-min. walk of local transit. Of course, being accessible, in Metro Toronto and Vancouver to transit, can add value to your home property.

Parents' decison-making on home location, can influence way down the road of the type of lifestyle, home location a person chooses later in life...amongst others factors, housing market value, location of job, etc.

Someone at work here, told me she met a woman whose 2 children (now young adults) had never used local public transit in their life. And they live within our city. In the city where I live and knowing its configuration, it's almost unimaginable (to me). Light rail transit has existed in our city for the past 20 yrs., bus service longer than that. (We used to have streetcars running through downtown core.)

[Koronin]

The one light rail line in Charlotte was built within the last 5 years. They've had bus service longer. However, get outside the major metro areas and public transportation is non existent. I never did use the public transportation in Charlotte, but we lived outside of Charlotte and with hubby's work hours it wasn't available and I worked in the town we lived in the most part. When I did work in Charlotte I had the same issues, the hours I worked were not compatible to public transportation. The city I grew up in never has and does not have public transportation. It's a city of around 50,000. I have no issues using public transportation as long as it's convenient and well actually useful.

[smilingcat]

For those who just can't give up a car, there are lot of interest and push in new class of cars for urban transportation.

Cars similar to Smart Car. Cars with exceptional MPG. These cars are ultra small, has very small footprint, and uses very little material. This would be the first step toward weaning people off "OWN YOUR OWN CAR" and into mass transit. http://gizmodo.com/5879489/mits-fold...ally-a-reality. This car folds up to half the size for smaller parking space. It's not for highway use though.

And if you want go lighter and smaller then there is this an electric assisted velomobile http://www.aerorider.com/en/aerorider.html Too bad you can't buy one in US and trying to import one would cost you over $15,000. It does have small storage space behind the seat.

I don't see why we can't have a fully enclosed electric scooter like the aerorider and without the speed restriction of electric assisted bicycle/velomobile. Gosh it would consume less than 1kW of electricity to commute. toaster oven of electricity for an hour.

Just think, amount of space needed for a car versus amount of space needed for velomobile and bicycles. How many more people could commute on the same road!! and how much less energy and money we would be burning up.

Well I am biased since this is what I am working on when I get all the software on my computer up and running. I want to build volksfahrrad costing $2,000 or less and powered by electric motor for those too lazy to pedal.

[Koronin]

Interesting, but they look like they aren't very safe and have no storage, cargo room at all. About all they'd be useful for is commuting. It doesn't even look like you could make stops on your way home from work to pick up something you may have forgotten on a shopping trip, which they'd also be useless for.