• walnutwalrus@lemmy.worldOP
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    11 months ago

    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

    • hillsanddales@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      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.