I have been working on a post about how communities like Rochester need to be aggressively reassessing our mass transit systems from a strategic POV. With gas almost inevitably rising in cost as China’s oil demands increase and supplies and refinery capacities wane, we will be facing a transportation crisis in the next ten years. Our communities have been built based on the ready availability of inexpensive personal transportation. Were I to be forced to take mass transit to buy groceries, for example, I would have to set aside 2-3 hours to complete the task. Many less fortunate in our community already have to do so. Everything is car-distances apart. In many cases we don’t even have sidewalks on main arteries.
While I will still do the strategic mass transit piece (which I hope to publish as an Op-ed in our local paper), today I came across this BusinessWeek slideshow about an urban transit schema that fuses mass and personal transit systems in an innovative and very possible manner. Designed by an MIT team that included noted architect and visionary Frank Gehry, the solution is both elegant and practical. Will it ever happen? I don’t know but it may very well be that market forces will make it so.