While the goals of this essay are laudable, we need to remember where we were before.

And that was horses.

Our streets were full of horse feces and urine, such a health hazard that authorities caved in rather quickly to ban horses from streets when cars could truly take over horse functions.

Horses were much more difficult to operate than cars. While many people had horse skills in those days, those without these skills had fewer options to participate in society. The car gave us a lot more liberty.

Our horse-and-carriage and steam locomotive days is not any kind of a utopia. They gave us more options, but they are not something we should yearn for.

We do need to move forward, beyond the automotive days.

In my younger days, I read a SF novel where people moved in capsules in a pneumatic tube system. A rider entered a capsule, plugged a destination, and a computer chose the right branches to take the rider to that destination. When the destination was reached, the capsule was free to take someone else to a different place.