Small Vehicle Transit

Human Mobility and the Advance of Civilization
Small vehicles are those vehicles that are small enough to be practically powered by human power.

Ideal vehicles, small vehicles, zero VMT vehicles, net-zero vehicles, low-emission vehicles, human-powered vehicles, hybrid human-electric vehicles, bicycles, tricycles, recumbent bicycles and tricycles, networked bicycles, bicycle and small vehicle systems, advanced bicycle and small vehicle systems; skates, scooters, skateboards; Segways(TM), GM P.U.M.A., Uno Cycle.

Large-scale transition to running cars with green electricity combined with ongoing light-weighting and streamlining along with significant improvements in conventional large-vehicle transit services may greatly reduce green house gas emissions.

But, the key issue is that a large-scale switch to global mobility based on small vehicles will cut emissions much more effectively to a dramatically complete long-term sustainable level, quite possibly to less than 1% of current emissions; and, especially with a global population projection of 8 to 10 billion people by 2050 -- with a minimal equivalent of two Chinas 40 years from now -- with extreme poverty and mass starvation effectively eliminated along with many other treatable and preventable diseases.

Part of this issue is to provide logical arguments on how this new mobility can be crafted to be much more practical, convenient, safe and cost effective (low cost); can provide better accessibility, performance, speed, range, etc. than current systems and is completely achievable in the extreme short term with existing technology.

Small vehicle transit -- such as currently embryonic public bicycle systems -- may be just starting to appear on the radar of advocacy groups addressing rapid action to mitigate and adapt to the climate change crisis and, hopefully, much more advanced small vehicle transit will soon become mainstream common wisdom as one of the critical solutions to the rapidly accelerating crisis.