The Future Of Transport Is Public, Not Autonomous Or Flying

Billionaires in California would have you believe that the answer to global traffic congestion lies in self-driving cars and ways to keep us in them for longer. Cars that drive themselves, or in some cases, fly themselves are the future they see for out cities. 

They are wrong, and the billions of dollars being sunk into development promise only a future of extended traffic crisis and the misery that goes with it.

Moving large numbers of people from where they are to where they want to be is best handled by a mass transit system that places the needs of the commuter over that of the profit maker. 

A properly integrated and properly maintained system of buses, trains, trams and ferries offer many more benefits than a system which prioritises individual private car usage. Every City that hasn't understood this lesson has seen traffic problems grow over the last two decades.

The key to making a public transport system work is to ensure that it is properly resourced and maintained. This can only be achieved through a large subsidy from the public purse. Trying to make passengers carry the enormous costs of rectifying decades of mismanagement and fund investment for future growth is madness.

In the most forward looking cities work is happening now to grow public transport in preparation for a better future. Most of those schemes look somewhat inadequate for the task ahead of them. Almost without exception, their plans need to be bigger and more ambitious.

And if forward-looking cities need to step up a gear, then others around the world with growing populations and growing problems need to take action before they have a full-blown crisis on their hands.

Being taken in by insane schemes proposed by those who are good at making money and keen to keep doing so is most definitely not the way to go.