Will the transportation revolutions improve our lives—or make them worse?

Abstract

We love our cars. Or at least we love the freedom, flexibility, convenience, and comfort they offer. That love affair has been clear and unchallenged since the advent of the Model T a century ago. No longer. Now the privately owned, human-driven, gasoline-powered automobile is being attacked from many directions, with change threatening to upend travel and transportation as we know it. The businesses of car making and transit supply—never mind taxis, road building, and highway funding—are about to be disrupted. And with this disruption will come a transformation of our lifestyles. The signs are all around us.