The Great Race for Space

There are 1,330 vehicles that take Southern Boulevard out of the city normally on a weekdays during the 5 PM hour. The average car is about 20 feet long and there is a car length of space between the cars. On a single lane of highway with traffic stopped, that works out to be a 10.3 mile long traffic jam. 

Mayor Erastus Corning penned an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1970 about the great crisis that mass motoring was bringing upon our cities. Highways consume enormous parts of our cities and countryside, the vehicles that run upon them put out poisonous gases that may very well kill of humanity and the world that we know and love. 

People pin great hope on autonomous cars and those that burn electricity. I’m skeptical. I think that only way we can get the amount of energy needed to power mass motoring is by burning fossil fuels, even if it’s at a centralized generating plant. But maybe I’m wrong. I hope so.