Getting There

Ride-hail companies Uber and Lyft have successfully provided their services to millions of customers. The companies are valued in the billions of dollars. Ride hail has been a distinctly disruptive technology in a stodgy transportation world that has seen little real change for decades. Admittedly, the degree of disruption has to be put in context—the overwhelming majority of trips in the U.S. are still made by solo drivers in their own vehicles.

It sounds like common sense: Small buses that provide on-demand service to neighborhoods should be cheap to operate and responsive to residents.
These mini-shuttles, in the past called “dial-a-ride,” now use updated technology, such as smartphone apps and routing by computer algorithm. The technology has given rise to a new term: microtransit.

If there was one New Year’s resolution that would help you do all the following, wouldn’t you jump at the idea?
• Lose weight and look better.
• Feel better and be happier.
• Be healthier and ward off disease and dementia.
• Save time and money.
• Reduce stress and anxiety.
• Live longer with better quality of life.

What would the ideal transportation system be? If we didn’t have to worry about reality, teleportation would probably be it. Beaming oneself to any destination instantaneously seems much better than fighting traffic. The movie “The Fly” suggests the fairly serious glitch of inadvertent species-mixing using this fictional tech, but maybe it could be debugged. (I’ve been told that a former mayor of Davis asked city staff to investigate the possibility of using teleportation for travel. Perhaps she didn’t see the movie.)

Electric cars have been the wave of the future since a long time in the past. They have promised cleaner air and zero trips to the gas station.
The plug-in electric cars I’m talking about are zero-emission vehicles, powered solely by batteries, not hybrids powered by gasoline generators. Governments have incentivized electric car purchases with hefty tax credits and HOV lane privileges. It’s possible to get a $7,500 federal tax credit and a $2,500 state rebate for an electric car.

The biggest transportation issue on the November ballot is Proposition 6, repeal of the new California fuel taxes. The transportation-funding mechanism put in place by Senate Bill 1 last year has already started pumping big dollars into the state’s beleaguered road system, focused mostly on repairing accumulated and inevitable wear and tear.