Ithaca to Improve Traffic with Electric Podcars

As sci-fi as it might sound, in a not so distant future we might find ourselves traveling within and between cities in automated computer-guided podcars that need no driver and can't get stuck in traffic.

{ad1}The idea of podcars running on a network of high beams like a horizontal elevators is not exactly new as small versions of the system have been built before and there are also plans for future implementations in Sweden, Poland and Korea, but Ithaca, New York, has big plans for this zero-CO2 emission transportation means.

"It's time we design cities for the human, not for the automobile," said Jacob Roberts, president of Connect Ithaca, a group aiming to make the upstate New York college town the first podcar community in the United States, was quoted by Associated Press as saying.

Compared public transportation forms, these electric vehicles can carry between two and ten passengers and are extremely easy to operate.

The occupant types in the address on a computerized pad and that's pretty much it as the podcar then travels to the desired station, which would be fitted with slanted pull-in bays, allowing other units to use the same rail.

According to the Associated Press report, a “network could connect the downtown business district and main business boulevard with the campuses of Cornell University and Ithaca College, which sit on hillsides flanking the city.” This would greatly ease the traffic of Ithaca, whose population reaches alarming quotas during college sessions.