Reply #49: And there is the crux...

[Chan790]

at this point, those things may not be viable. Sad to say, by our own folly, the era of personal transport is likely nearing an end. It's not sustainable...even with zero-emission cars, hybrids or electric cars. We could have bought another 50 years if we'd started exploring and building those things 20 years ago in combination with a major push on public transit...now it's just too late.

The "Big 3" got to where they are by not listening to the people...and now that they see that they're where they are because they didn't listen to the people, it may be too late to listen to the people. Honestly, we're reaching a crisis of humanity where people better start changing what they want to meet a new reality where the status quo is not viable.

Ultimately, there are parts of this country where public mass transit may not be viable and it is at these periphery that personal transit will probably always exist in some form. But in the areas where most people live: the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic urban corridor, Pacific Coast, and the Great Lakes Region...something has got to change, the problems are legion: pollution, lack of transport options, and yes...over-reliance on personal transportation leading to near-perpetual gridlock.

Living in an East Coast mid-sized metro-region, I can tell you that there is only one solution to our regional transportation issue...we can't build more roads or expand what we've got...people have got to get out of their cars...the only solution locally is less personal transportation. And that's the future reality for every metro-region in America. It was true 50 years ago in Europe, 15 years ago in LA, DC and NYC; today in Hartford, New Haven and the Fairfield Corridor here in CT, No. VA, parts of south Florida and 100 other places; ten years from now it's going to be KC, Peoria, St. Louis, Des Moines, Seattle and I can list cities here until I'm blue in the face or pass out from exhaustion and not make a dent in this dystopian future reality.

Adapt or die (metaphorically as a society, not literally as an person).