Wednesday Wishlist: Transit Innovation

This summer I spent quite a bit of time in London and Paris, cities that are known to have some of the best public transportation systems in the world (definitely the best in Europe). You can get pretty much anywhere in either of this cities by subway. For several years, I have fantasized of one day (many decades from now) having a similar system in San Jose. After extensively using underground, overground, and light rail systems this summer... I'm actually going to have to retract this fantasy. I think we can and should build something much better that reflects Silicon Valley's innovative capacity.

The subway concept is actually 150 years old and has evolved at a snail's pace. Key improvements include electrification, escalators, and better tunneling... no dramatic recent innovations. The London tube system today (pictured way below) and the technology behind it, shockingly isn't that much different than it was 60 years ago in 1950. Think about what this means. This is a systems that was mostly built long before personal computers, the internet, even before microwaves became commonplace. If you really think about it, it's archaic tech. Here are some negatives that really stood out during my trip (and can also apply to public transit in general):

• It's not that fast. The underground trains' max speeds are around 40mph and if you factor in stops your average speed is 20mph. If you also factor in the time takes to walk down into the station and wait for a train, then it's actually faster to walk in many instances if your stop is only 2 to 3 stations away.
• It's not that efficient. London has a system that specifically tries to minimize transfers, and sometimes you still have to do 2 transfers to get where you want to go.
• It's not that comfortable. I would say 90% of the time in London it was standing room only when boarding the trains. In Paris it was a little bit better in terms of seating, but the constant bad smell in the trains made it equal or surpass the uncomfort level in London.
• Zero privacy

Now let's circle back to San Jose. We're in an interesting position thanks to the lack of transit development and in the end it might even be a good thing. It's almost like we have a blank page to work with and have to luxury to ask "SHOULD WE MIMICS SYSTEMS THAT ARE CONCEPTUALLY 150 YEARS OLD OR IS THERE A BETTER WAY?"

I think the answer is that there is a much better way, and that it will eventually be some form of high speed personal rapid transit. This is pretty much a hybrid between a car and public transit. You walk into a station, get into a private pod, tell it where you want to go... and that's it. There are no lines, no stops, no transfers, the comfort level is equal to a car, and you have total privacy (including peace of mind to use a tablet or laptop without thinking twice). The tracks and stations would also be smaller and dramatically less expensive than traditional transit and could be placed in many more locations (if underground, you could literally have a stop at every block). The real trick is developing the computing brains behind the system that will manage all of the pods, and that my friends is familiar territory for Silicon Valley.

To summarize the longest Wednesday Wishlist ever, we should be devoting most of our transit efforts to a contemporary system that will create a new paradigm for other cities to follow instead of going with a traditional and infrequently questioned model. This is a geographic area that has spurred innovation across a dozen different industries, perhaps transportation could be our next one?