[Tokra]

I've always thought the best way for auto long distance travel is a compromise - let the cars be hooked to some kind of moving conveyor (just like in the car wash) that could whisk them along at extrememly high speeds. The driver wouldn't have to do a thing - you could even take a nap. When you arrive at your destination, you'd exit from the conveyor system and drive off on your merry way.

This would give the best of both worlds - the privacy of being in your own vehicle coupled with the cheaper and faster travel of mass transit.

If these conveyor systems could be put in tunnels and use maglev/bullet train technology, you could drive across the country in a matter of hours.

Someday it will happen.

[fishtank]

Hi-performance cars with computer control would accomplish the same thing. The conveyor is a bit capital intensive.

[numberonepal]

et the cars be hooked to some kind of moving conveyor

I like it. No more traffic jams on the freeway.

[RobbyS]

The way they do it with "Chunnel" trains is another way. Cars are loaded on trains and the drivers ride in adjacent passenger cars.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

"...let the cars be hooked to some kind of moving conveyor ..."

Cars ride the train through the Chunnel from England to France. I've wondered whether that could work elsewhere. If "smart highways" are developed, cars will be linked into conveys with electronic controls (I'd have to be drugged and blindfolded to ride one of them though.)

[ihatemyalarmclock]

I've always thought the best way for auto long distance travel is a compromise - let the cars be hooked to some kind of moving conveyor (just like in the car wash) that could whisk them along at extrememly high speeds.

This comes close to the concept of "road cities" presented by Robert Heinlein in 1940's "The Roads Must Roll."

Heinlein's fiction was way ahead of its time, to say the least.

He was also a "small-l libertarian," so his road-cities were private, not government, projects.

They were, however, unionized, and it was labor trouble that eventually brought the road-cities to a halt. Literally.

Still a fun read, though, as are all the stories collectively known as his "future history."