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The ultimate stage of evolution in personal urban transportation is the golf cart. On one end you have increasingly fat cargo bikes - some have roofs or windsh

by Tade0 4y ago

The ultimate stage of evolution in personal urban transportation is the golf cart. On one end you have increasingly fat cargo bikes - some have roofs or windshields. On the other there are kei-cars, heavy quadricycles like the Twizy and now this. Like sea creatures evolving into crabs, it's converging into the perfect form.

asdff 4y ago
The only issue is you still end up with all the issues cars have, especially the inefficiency of having people in a dense urban areas get around by standing in line 20 feet apart from eachother, which is what private vehicular traffic basically is, and of course the need for having some place to store the golf cart wherever you go on the other end. At least with bikes you can compress the peleton quite a bit at a light and they don't take up as much space to park (especially stacked vertically like in most bike hubs today), and on a bus you can probably fit a good 60 people inside at least and really maximize the ratio of people moved per square footage of roadspace consumed.
- Tade0 4y ago
  Why 20 feet? Golf carts are much shorter/narrower than that: https://jsgolfcarts.com/blog/golf-cart-dimensions/ https://jsgolfcarts.com/blog/golf-cart-dimensions/ You could comfortably fit three of them on two lanes, and believe me people will do it. Italians generally drive smaller cars than other Europeans and that's what happens there on intersections. Actually, considering the dimensions, a fully packed four-seater has a smaller footprint than the equivalent bicycles - even Dutch ones. If you put everyone in two-seaters riding alone, then indeed you'll have 1/3 the density of bicycles, but that's the lower boundary! Personally I don't see the point of maximizing it any further than what golf carts achieve. Especially that they provide appropriate comfort and stability.
  - asdff 4y ago
    I say 20 feet to factor in some sensible margin between vehicles. I'm also not measuring bumper to bumper, but driver to driver.

by Tade0 4y ago

asdff 4y ago

The only issue is you still end up with all the issues cars have, especially the inefficiency of having people in a dense urban areas get around by standing in line 20 feet apart from eachother, which is what private vehicular traffic basically is, and of course the need for having some place to store the golf cart wherever you go on the other end. At least with bikes you can compress the peleton quite a bit at a light and they don't take up as much space to park (especially stacked vertically like in most bike hubs today), and on a bus you can probably fit a good 60 people inside at least and really maximize the ratio of people moved per square footage of roadspace consumed.

Tade0 4y ago
Why 20 feet? Golf carts are much shorter/narrower than that: https://jsgolfcarts.com/blog/golf-cart-dimensions/ https://jsgolfcarts.com/blog/golf-cart-dimensions/ You could comfortably fit three of them on two lanes, and believe me people will do it. Italians generally drive smaller cars than other Europeans and that's what happens there on intersections. Actually, considering the dimensions, a fully packed four-seater has a smaller footprint than the equivalent bicycles - even Dutch ones. If you put everyone in two-seaters riding alone, then indeed you'll have 1/3 the density of bicycles, but that's the lower boundary! Personally I don't see the point of maximizing it any further than what golf carts achieve. Especially that they provide appropriate comfort and stability.
- asdff 4y ago
  I say 20 feet to factor in some sensible margin between vehicles. I'm also not measuring bumper to bumper, but driver to driver.