[lbo-talk] The War on the Car-driver

Gar Lipow the.typo.boy at gmail.com
Mon Nov 14 12:06:29 PST 2005


On 11/14/05, James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> Why don't you go round some working class neighbourhoods and ask
> people if they are willing to trade their cars in for bicycles.
>

How about a nice automated driverless train that computes routes on the fly - so it gets you places as or more quickly than a car would? No waiting, available 24 hours a day, stops convenient to your home? Unlike conventional light rail, not strictly an urban creature. Railbeds are inexpensive enough, and station small and cheap enough that it is compatible with suburbs. 600 passenger miles to the gallon equivalent.

Not good enough? How about an electric car that can go 240 miles on a single charge, and gets the equivalent of 200 miles to the gallon. They built on 1997, for less than median price of a car that year, and demonstrated the charge life by drving it from Boston to Washington D.C.

It probably will not suprise you that capitalism is vigorous enough to develop stuff like this, and flawed enough structurally not to deploy it.



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