Transportation solutions

Can we move forward on transportation? I hope so. Our transportation thinking has been shallow. We've been locked into the bus/light rail/bicycle paradigm. What we need is a move toward systems thinking. In that mode, we look at every urban planning and transportation challenge with new eyes. It's time to think mobility, not simply transportation. Students at MIT did an interesting project. They noticed airports have these neatly stacked carts in them. They extended the airport shopping cart concept further---to automobiles. In this integrated system, stacked rows of two-seat mini-cars, perhaps powered by a diffused engine system, sit at the entrance to subways. Passengers collect their public mini-cars there, which are good for short trips. The cars are then deposited in another stacked row at another terminus, such as a subway entry. Such an integrated, networked system can function almost the way a beehive does. Each part within the system compliments the whole system. An integrated system of vehicles of varying shapes and sizes, each dedicated to a particular function, would fit into a systems approach to mobility. What we have today works, to an extent. But it is a limited vision.