Quote:
Originally Posted by aerohead
If you're happy getting half the fuel economy then good for you!
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It's not as simple as infrastructure not being designed with enough capacity. For one example, there's the "if you build it, they will come" problem. Make traffic flow easily between city and suburbs, and you simply extend out the suburbs, increase traffic and we're back to rush hour gridlock.
Another problem is that infrastructure built to handle peak capacity will be severely underutilized off-peak. The gridlock that occurs in cities encourages some people to modify when they choose to travel, carpool, or take mass transit to avoid congestion.
I'm not arguing for creating gridlock, only saying that it isn't a simple problem a couple geniuses can solve.
I kinda think commuting is outdated anyhow because most city jobs can accommodate distributed work rather than centralizing into a single location. Between that, and increasing automation, large gains in efficiency should be possible.