Traffic-Horrific

do what they do in Singapore. Want to buy a new car...you buy and old one and export it. The max number of cars allowed has been reached.

Can we do that here? not overall, but we can charge city center fees, London UK style.

A snow plough would be appropriate for winter but rather for all seasons install a

trash sweeper. Trash applenty is abundantly available all season. Wear the appropriate appearal and blend in with the sherriff's clean up crew. But wait, if you start too early or arrive too late your hand will be tipped so you may need a tow truck attachment for normal hour arrivals.

oomsarel, perhaps you should try this: http://indramamg-vtol.com/

Travel by rail.

Tele-working...

Travel by push-bike...

Slow down the rate of licensing of vehicles and drivers...

Increase insurance premiums...

Increase the rate of taxation on fuels...

Provide subsidised bus services...

Indianapolis had the best public transportation system in the world in the early 1900s, while it was becoming famous for Duesenberg, Cord, Auburn, and the Indianapolis 500. Studies have shown that you could actually get around (including a trip to Chicago and back) faster back then than you could today.

But this was before politicians took over, not after.

We should recall what motivates politicians, and that we never pay attention to our politicians. We cover our eyes and ears when they're campaigning, elect them while holding our noses, and then turn our backs on them.

"Trust Busting" killed public transportation in the USA. Tax-paid road subsidies, road building, road maintenence, auto industry subsidies, fuel industry subsidies (direct and indirect), and foreign policy linked to auto/oil has been the problem. You need look no further.

Get government out, and all will improve by the invisible hand of the free market.

Ja Oom

We have to change our ideas that we are entitled to use our cars for everything, even going 500 meters up the road to the bottle store.

South Africa is suffering from a lack of good, safe public transport and also the excessive urban building programme instituted by most municipalities. Whilst the town houses go up daily, the basic infrastructure is not upgraded. This means too many people using to few facilities. This is the main reason why the main roads are clogged with commuter traffic.

As you know crime is now reaching epidemic proportions in South Africa, and with such a useless police force no one in there right minds will use public transport unless they have to.

With modern communication systems many people could work from home via the internet etc. The UK has implemented such a system years ago and it seems to work very well.

If light rail or public transport isn't a good option because of crime, you are pretty much stuck with personal vehicles. Buying guns and ammunition isn't really a good option either.

How about staggered or flexible work hours? One company in Vancouver, BC lets its employees come in later to avoid the morning rush then go home after evening rush. Might help take advantage of those low-flow times.

Using evenings to work out or otherwise enjoy the city can also be an effective use of time. Bring supper or eat out after your workout then cruise home without delay!

A good war would git-r-done. Or how about a plague? Less people = less cars...

We're actually working hard and fast on both of these. Don't worry; it may seem hopeless now, but human beings always come through with these -especially the war thing. The next one should take out a good two billion or so.

Having a good commute myself I spend a lot of time thinking about this.

The real nasty backups I see are usually caused my accidents. Driving through Chicago once, I noticed they have little parking lots in the medians for the crash victims cars to move into instead of blocking the roads. In the Boston area where I'm from, many inner highways don't have breakdown lanes.

I do have an idea to build elevated tramways above all major highways. Cars can be retrofitted to lock on to the tracks and travel much quicker and safer than they would on the conventional roadways. The cost and maintenance should be less then conventional highways as well.

The last solution would be to encourage employers to offer more flexible work hours. This way employees can work hours convenient for themselves and avoid the typical rush hour. Win-win for everyone!

I love cars; probably more than most American males do. But through our bizarre schemes of subsidies/road programs and wars for gas, we've made it artificially cheap and easy to drive. Our laws and regulations give us a false sense of security. And all the above over a few generations now has architected our cities and lives for cars more than for people. "We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us." -Winston Churchill

So we really should make government stop building roads, and we should stop expecting it to get easier and more comfortable when what we really need to do is find alternatives that we've been actively suppressing with our obsession with cars.

I work at home, and took a major beating in both my paycheck, tax-subsidized benefits and direct taxation (try starting your own business in the USA today! Oy Vey!) partly because I got sick of city life (we moved to a farm), and city traffic (though I commuted mostly by bicycle).

We all can find personal solutions to this problem. We can move closer to work, move work closer to home, work at home, change jobs, etc. The problem is that we're unwilling to compromise on the car thing, and that's a shame.

Cars should be fun toys, but they've instead become costly masters.

The solution is to terminate the driver license to all drivers that do not keep a reasonable distance and hit by the back. This would eliminate almost 50% of drivers in the USA.

Maybe an even better solution would be to let insurance companies issue drivers' licenses.

Since they have a fiduciary interest in our health (that is to say, continued payments with no claims), they'd make licensing cheap for good drivers, and prohibitively expensive for bad drivers.

Since insurance has already been mandated in all states in the USA (I'm pretty sure about this, anyway), then this would actually be a way to make government/taxation cheaper, make insurance companies better able to control their currently difficult and tippy business, and save a lot of lives, gas and hassle.

Roads that move during the bottle-neck portions of busy highways. Not fast, just, say, 20 km/hr or so. (I saw a proposal for a moving magnetic field that hauled cars down the road....don't know if that has any promise. But substantially, it would be the same as a heavy hauler conveyor belt.) If they can deliver iron ore into ships in Cleaveland, they can haul cars down the road!

advantages...no snow plows and salt trucks needed, cars can get closer together in safety, no stop and go traffic, heck, you could even turn the engine off to reduce smog if it is a long stretch. Movement in fog, rain, snowstorms would still be possible. No need for energy sucking overhead highway lights.

dis-advantages...off ramps would need to be closely monitored to shut the road down instantly in case of an accident, say, by some idiot who has fallen asleep on the ride, or changed lanes improperly.

All the usual technical questions are simple to find answers for. The human element makes this a problem you can get your teeth into!

I've got a few ideas other than the tractor or the narrow car...

You know about those pipe transporting system the banks use to send money around...? Now immagine a number of pipes going from city to city. You go to a station and klimb into a capsule. Then with a strong vaccuum in front and pressure from behind you get sent (@ 800 km/h) to your destination... I call it the Suck-way..

Dear sir,

Do it the Singapore way. Have electronic road pricing. The more you use the road , the more you pay. The more the congestion, the higher the price to use that road. Too much to say how the system works. They have a system of gantries fitted with electronic receivers to detect car movement. Every car by law is required to be fitted with a transponder. Deduction for payment is through a card card inserted in the transponder. If you fail to pay ie no cash card in the transponder, the system will identify your vehicle through your transponder electronically. They will send you a penalty, cost of usage not paid + a S$10 penalty.

Also have a tender system to purchase vehicles. Before you register a new vehicle, you must bid for a licence for this vehicle ie how much $ you want to pay to get this licence. Set a quota for each month licences. The highest bidders (within the quota) will win but pay the lowest bid price. Make it expensive to own and use a vehicle. They call this Certificate of Entitlement (COE). In this way you control vehicle population.

Know something: Singapore has the most expensive prices for vehicles in the world. A 1.5 litres Toyota Corolla will set you back at least USD 46,000.00, depending on the COE. With this price you can get a good Lexus in the USA.

K H Chiang

Toll roads are very unpopular in the USA because our government has made the price of roads invisible. If government would completely get its hands out of transportation, the the free market solution would certainly be better and cheaper...but with more visible costs that we'd weigh every time we turn the key.

Ditto with the price of fuel, cars, etc. Our complex and politically motivated schemes of taxation, litigation, regulation and subsidy have removed the regulating forces of the free market (which are, contrary to what politicians tell us, always ecologically conservative), and have unreasonably twisted our lives, city architecture, business priorities and economic systems toward self-destruction.

This is a pattern as old as Mohenjo Daro/ Harappo (self-destroyed by wiping out trees to make bricks for grand cities) and Easter Island (self-destroyed by wiping out trees to erect Moai).

The problems worldwide are caused by ungoverned government; not by any lack of political engineering.

Very interesting concept. Will be funny to see what South-African Taxi owners would do if our gov. put in a system like that... They would probably blow it up... Here they blow ATMs up to get to the cash and I think tollgates are next on the list... The Gov are trying to partly subsidize bigger and better mini bus taxi's by offering to buy any old and used-up taxi for 30 000 south- African rands... Or is it 50 000?? Anyway. The taxi owners here are not willing to give up their old junkers (smoking, oil leaking non roadworthy etc). They say it will cost them too much even if it gets partly subsidized.. They still would have to pay another R100 000+....

We are spoiled with cheap licencing fees (about $20 Us or in SA Rand R130 a year..) People will Blow those gantries fitted with electronic receivers UP!!

Try a car sharing , and car holidays like in Mexico city .