The Future of Transportation and Some Genuine Ideas

Myself and the padre zipping by Niagara Falls, Canada.

I’m no Elon Musk, but if I had his bank account, I could be a female contender.

Here’s the deal - I’ve lived in 14 cities – Cleveland, Chicago, Breckenridge CO, Minneapolis, DC, Berlin Germany, Milan Italy, Neuchatel Switzerland, Leicester, England, Rio etc.

Chances are if you’ve been in the same city at the same time and driven, I’ve yelled at you.

Not necessarily because I have road rage, but people are really shitty drivers. I once sat in traffic in DC that was caused because a man was Facetiming at a green light. WHAT A NIMROD.

I do a lot of things to bypass traffic- I have an ipass, a vespa, a bicycle; I’ve also exited Ubers in the middle of traffic and run to meetings or more importantly yoga class.

This may stem from my being an Aries and my sincere lack of patience, but at the same time, people are idiots.

I do have one quick traffic rule before I unleash my unholy road rage on you:  I will not yell at you if you are doing at least the speed limit.

I’ve seen older gentlemen read the newspaper and even full-novels in traffic. This ladies and  gents is why we have traffic – that and because Elon Musk was born too late to ensure flying cars and the Jetson style life were available to the average human by Y2K.

So noting that I’ve had a lot of time to sit in traffic- most recently in Breckenridge, CO where I cannot for the life of me understand why there is not a monorail or direct train from Denver to here—I feel this is the ideal moment to offer my futuristic plans for transportation. 

Anywho – here’s the deal. I love driving. I like to pretend I’m the paler, smaller, girl version of Vin Diesel in “Fast and the Furious,” but I also understand cars are not sustainable for the environment, I hate traffic, and anywhere you can drive fast without traffic has a cop just waiting around the bend to slam ya with a ticket.

That said, I believe our society is smart enough to create alternate forms of transportation that do not run on fuel or still get stuck in traffic.

Good ol’ Elon is working on a catapult/tunnel system in LA which is admirable and confirms his status as a visionary, but I 1. See a lot of risks involved 2. Let’s not talk cost and 3. This sounds like a deal for the one percent so I propose….

ZIP LINES.

To be fair, I’ve been proposing this idea since my freshmen year of college at the University of Minnesota. Campus there is not unlike the National Mall in DC- a big grassy mall surrounded by big old buildings with high windows. Now Minnesota has tunnels because it’s flipping cold but 1. No cell receptions and 2. Everyone (and I mean everyone) gets lost in them.

Another key piece of information here is that during my senior year, my friends and I met every Tuesday at 9 am to toss the fris and then run to class. The thing is, we could have easily saved about 10-15 minutes on our commute to the mall and class had there been access to a zip line.

Why? Because there were easy downgrade angles and huge windows.

Beyond Minnesota- when I moved to DC, I lived kitty corner to my best friend at the time. Now the walk to her house took a solid five minutes- nothing too crazy, but when we hung out late at night, or had heels on from an event, how great would it have been to just strap on a carabiner and zoom on into bed?

Answer: So great.

Additionally as some less creative humans than myself have pointed out – not everyone is equipped to zip line.

Here’s where I’m at. Everyone purchases a harness and two carabiners. Zipliners pay a premium subscription fee which would give individuals access to any zipline stop in their city- think gym membership for ziplining transit. The whole process would create jobs because people would need to staff both ends to manage clipping on/rock a backpack to put in shoes/other lose objects  - Niagara falls zipline is a solid chair set up I’d chose to mimic.

Additionally- the adrenaline rush would make people more productive/inclined to go to meetings/ reduce traffic and is just flat out fun!

Now let’s be real- there are real health and safety risks here- heart attacks for the elderly, falling, faulty equipment, bad weather blah blah this is America and I anticipate a few law suits. But I take safety very seriously. We’d install a net line that would release and catch anyone who started to fall and make sure equipment had regular check-ups. 

In the future maybe we create zipline cat walks – instead of walking you just zoom on through- forget moving sidewalks- people always stand on both sides and block everything anyways.

So there you have it – Ziplines are the transportation of the future and the future is flipping bright.

PS - yes, that is my dad on me riding the ziplines at Niagara Falls. What a way to celebrate his 70th birthday! 

Interested in riding the Niagara Falls Zipline ?